On a Train, Switching Tracks
by Mede
Summary: First year: "Celebrities," Harry said. "Fame makes them mad. I take it the wizarding world doesn't really have them, then?" Draco and Ron exchanged glances. "No, not really." AU, assorted oneshots and snippets.
1. On a Train, Switching Tracks

Just want to make clear that this is a oneshot. While I am open to writing future oneshots following this story, I have no ideas for any, so it's not looking likely right now. If anyone thinks of anything, let me know; maybe it'll spark something and I'll post more.

Critiques and comments welcome, especially if you notice anything weird about the formatting or whatever; this is my first time posting (_not_ writing) anything on this site.

**On a Train, Switching Tracks**

"...I'm Draco Malfoy."

Ron snickered, causing the pale boy to flush.

"Think that's funny, do you--"

"Why?" Harry interrupted, looking at Ron. "Your name's Weasley; that's not normal where I'm from either. I'm curious, which part do you think is odd, Draco or Malfoy?"

Both boys just stared at him.

"Well, Malfoy doesn't sound _that_ odd to me, and anyway he can hardly do anything about a family name," Harry went on, settling himself more comfortably. "And as for Draco, that sounds like it might be traditional or hereditary or something. It's a constellation, right? And it means dragon or something. I wish _my_ name was Dragon."

Draco began to look faintly pleased, Ron still faintly stupefied.

"Even if he doesn't like it his parents are the ones to blame," Harry continued, since no one else was making any indication of participating and he was beginning to warm up to the subject. "And Draco Malfoy is far, _far_ better than some of the names the other species has come up with. _Those_ are seriously-consider-torching-the-birth-certificate-and-running-away-like-crazy kinds of names. To us real people, anyway."

He sat back a little, satisfied with their reactions and enjoying the unaccustomed attention.

"Y-ou mean muggles?" Draco guessed cautiously.

"_Celebrities_," Harry said. "Muggles that have gotten really famous in the muggle world--usually infamous, too--and been famous for a long time. It does something to their heads, at least half of them. If they ever stop being celebrities, it's like they die, so they do _anything_ to get talked about..." He leaned forward, and enunciated in a lower tone, "Mad--as--_hatters_." Then he shook his head and sat back again.

Draco and Ron were by now utterly rapt even if they didn't realize it, and the two big boys at the door ensured that no interruptions would break that.

"Er--so what do they name their kids?" Ron asked with the fascination of watching a train wreck or perhaps just alien interaction. "They can _have_ them?"

Harry smiled and half-lowered his eyelids, savoring the knowledge he was about to impart. He had plenty of it--it was great comfort to know the Dursleys were hardly the worst people he could be stuck with out there--but he had never imagined a real use for it until now.

"Dweezil Zappa," he began after a brief pause to heighten their anticipation. "Zappa's his surname. Of course surnames are trickier with most since most celebrities don't stay married more than a few years, and don't even always marry the person they have a kid with. And Dweezil's sisters are Diva Muffin and Moon Unit."

Ron made a small choking sound. Harry grinned.

"Then there's Spec Wildhorse, Bogart Che Peyote, and Rocco Kokopelli. The last two are brothers. Their surname's Rainey. Another boy's Audio Science."

Belatedly it occurred to Harry that two wizard-raised boys might not understand that one fully, but that didn't seem to make any difference according to their expressions.

"Now we get into the girls. Moxie Crimefighter. Yep, that's a girl. And Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. Her surname's Hutchence. And finally..."

He drew it out so long that Draco and Ron both glared at him, still holding their breath a little. At some point Draco had joined Ron on the bench opposite Harry without either of them seeming to notice. Harry grinned again and leaned forward toward them.

"I won't say imagine if you were a girl. But imagine if you had sisters with these names, and what that might make your name--because all three of these are sisters: Little Pixie. Fifi Trixibelle. Peaches Honeyblossom."

"You're having us on!" Ron cried, jumping up. "Nobody would do that to their kids! That's _barmy_!"

Harry nodded. "Celebrities," he said simply. "Fame makes them mad. I take it the wizarding world doesn't really have them, then?"

Draco and Ron abruptly forgot their reactions and animosity and glanced at one another with combined alarm and guilt. The wizarding world's biggest celebrity for the last ten years was the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter.

And Harry Potter had been raised in the muggle world, whose celebrities went mad, especially when they'd been famous for a long time...

"No, not really," Draco spoke first with studied casualness. "Some people pretty well known, of course, but... so, what kinds of things are these muggle celebrities famous for?"

"Oh, all kinds." Harry shrugged. "Mostly singers, actors, anybody popular--some people are famous just for being famous," he added thoughtfully. "Don't ask me how that works, there doesn't seem to be any logic to it. Then again, there doesn't seem to be much logic to celebrities. Really the only real qualification seems to be having enough people know who they are and be interested in what they do. There've been at least a few celebrities who started out totally not wanting to be one."

Draco and Ron exchanged a briefer glance of near panic. Harry Potter was the _entire_ British wizarding world's biggest celebrity. And he could go mad any time...?

"So, let's both try and get into Gryffindor, Harry, wouldn't it be wicked to take all our classes together?" Ron blurted the first subject that came to mind, realizing the necessity of keeping close company with his new friend to provide a buffer between him and the rest of the world.

"Of course, Gryffindor is well known for encouraging _bravery_ and things like _heroic acts_..." Draco added meaningfully, fixing Ron with a gimlet stare. Things like heroic acts would only increase Harry's popularity, and make it harder to keep him from realizing he was a celebrity and starting to actually become one.

Ron paled slightly and backpedalled hastily. "Er, yeah, now I think about it, that could get pretty dangerous... or, well, er, annoying, yeah..."

"So you don't want to be in Gryffindor?" Harry asked interestedly.

Ron floundered, unwilling to say yes but unable to say no.

"Different people are suited to different Houses," Draco inserted quickly, unconsciously lifting his nose a bit into the air. A flash of inspiration struck. "Weasleys are always in Gryffindor, and I'm for Slytherin, so you ought to see if you can wind up in one of the other two. Keep it balanced, you see."

"What are the other two?" Harry asked.

Draco was too surprised that he didn't know to answer immediately, so Ron explained, "Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Ravenclaw's for the smart sort, Hufflepuff's for the... er..."

He'd never given enough thought to Hufflepuff to be able to come up with any description other than 'duffers.'

"Wit and learning," Draco took over again smoothly. "That's the catchphrase for Ravenclaws, it doesn't necessarily mean smart. That suits you pretty well, I think. Knowing and remembering all those muggle celebrity names, that's pretty impressive in both of those categories, wouldn't you say?"

Ravenclaws were suitable for Slytherins to associate with; Hufflepuffs were... well, duffers.

Harry just shrugged, looking mildly surprised. "I don't know. I never paid much attention to learning stuff, just did for whatever was interesting..." He stopped suddenly and blinked. "I could turn out pretty good at schoolwork now, couldn't I?"

"Uh, yeah?" Ron gave him a look that politely but pointedly suggested that question was crazy.

"Well, I never tried at home 'cause my aunt and uncle would get mad if I got better marks than my cousin," he explained placidly. "And he was about as smart as a hippo. It just really clicked that I'm not going to the same school as him anymore... does it take anything more than paying attention in class to get good marks? And reading some of the textbooks sometimes?"

Draco and Ron stared at one another.

"You'd do great in Ravenclaw," Draco said finally, a subtle elbow in Ron's side ensuring that he wouldn't be stupid enough to disagree. "Really."

"We can help you out with any of the tricky stuff anyway," Ron agreed, slightly awkwardly, because he had never been a spectacular student and had just suddenly realized that he was cooperating with a boy he had taken an immediate dislike to and planned to be in the rival House of. "I mean what with us having grown up with magic and all. If that makes any difference. There're lots of other muggleborns around too though."

Harry just smiled. He didn't particularly care about the Houses thing, or understand why it seemed to matter, but he was quite happy. As well as possibly improved marks, he'd be able to make friends in a school away from Dudley, and he'd never imagined all that would take was happening to remember a few celebrities' kids' names. "Why don't we all three try to get into Ravenclaw? Or Hufflepuff, since that's the one none of us have picked."

Draco and Ron stared at one another again. What kind of logic was that? Could Harry already be a little mad?

"Or," he said suddenly, interrupting their silent anxiety, "let's just make friends with a Hufflepuff so we'll be a set!"

Draco and Ron kept staring at one another. Make friends with a Hufflepuff? They didn't even know which first years would wind up in which House yet; how could they pick a Hufflepuff?

But... it would be one more person to help keep an eye on Harry, to keep everyone else off him. A Gryffindor and a Slytherin could keep a Hufflepuff in line if necessary, if they picked a bad one, and phase him out if they had to. A lot of the classes in Hogwarts were with two Houses together; having a Hufflepuff would ensure Harry was never alone with all those kids who had grown up on tales of the Boy Who Lived...

Then again, it was probably going to be tricky enough getting along with each other.

"Um--e-e-excuse me," a rather nervous voice stuttered. Draco, Harry and Ron all looked toward the door, but all they saw was the two big boys Draco had brought with him when he came to meet Harry Potter. And forgotten about.

"Crabbe, Goyle, get out of here," Draco ordered.

The two big boys grunted and shuffled away. They left behind a much smaller boy, tousle-haired and slightly pudgy and barely able to meet their gazes, mostly gluing his to the floor. "I w-was just trying to get by, and m-my toad got away... ah, d-d'you see it?"

Harry promptly dropped to the floor on his hands and knees, and Draco and Ron looked at the new boy. Hufflepuff, they thought in perfect accord.

If ever there was one, Ron also thought.

But he _stammers_, Draco also thought. He's _annoying_.

"Here's a toad!" Harry exclaimed happily, coming up with a warty-looking lump in one hand and seeming entirely unbothered by it. "I've never seen one up close before; look, you guys. How's he different from a frog? Oh, c'mon in, plenty of room with us. Have you got a place already?"

"Uh, no, t-thanks." The boy moved in, looking surprised and gratified, and timidly took the end of the seat closest to the door beside Harry. "His name's Trevor," he added unprovoked, when Harry continued to examine the toad with evident interest. "Watch out for his, uh, w-water if he gets nervous, it can give you warts..."

Harry looked fascinated. Draco and Ron looked at one another once more and came to silent resigned agreement. Ron got up and moved to the other bench between the boy and Harry since Draco clearly wasn't capable of being very friendly, slung his arm over his shoulder--the boy started, then looked slightly idiotically thrilled, the poor shy little nobody--and said, "So, what House you think you'll be in? Hufflepuff, yeah?"

He looked faintly alarmed. "Uh--I-I don't know, whatever's fine, really--"

"I bet you're perfect for Hufflepuff," Harry said encouragingly. Despite the fact that, Draco and Ron knew, he knew absolutely nothing about that House. "This is Draco Malfoy, he's going to be in Slytherin--just don't comment if you think his name's funny, personally I don't but there's a lot worse I can tell you about later--and this is Ron Weasley, he wants to be in Gryffindor--unless you don't?"

"No, yeah, Gryffindor for me," Ron affirmed hastily.

"And I'm Harry Potter, and I'm Ravenclaw..."

"I-I'm Neville Longbottom, and..." He looked at them, beginning to get the idea but apparently slightly unbelieving that he was being included. "...Hufflepuff?"

"Great!" Harry said cheerfully. Neville smiled shyly back.

"_Attention, passengers: thirty minutes until arrival. Please leave all luggage as it will be conveyed separately, and have uniforms on before Hogwarts Express comes to a stop. Thirty minutes until arrival..._"

"Here we go!" Harry exclaimed, looking out the compartment window with bright wide eyes. Neville followed his gaze, his eyes almost brighter, and Draco and Ron did the same because it seemed like they might as well and there might be something they could already see.

There they went indeed...


	2. On a Wall, Supporting Proof

First off, I was hugely grateful for all the wonderful reviews this got and I sincerely apologize for not having had the time to reply to each of them. I enjoyed reading all the ideas for what could/should happen, but, my mind being a very weird twisty place that even I don't delve too deeply into, the biggest spark I got was from "what if Neville was the Boy Who Lived?", turning it into "what if Neville was the Heir of Slytherin?" Naturally, that makes no sense whatsoever, so it took a while to turn that into an actual oneshot--and this is the result. I'm thinking now that maybe I'll try one oneshot for each year, possibly culminating in an alternate epilogue. Don't expect any faster (or even guaranteed) updates, though, because (again) I have no more ideas. :)

Thank you again, and I hope you like. Without further ado:

Year Two:

**On a Wall, Supporting Proof**

Ron Weasley grimaced when he first saw the Dueling Club notice on his common room message board in second year, then did something very unusual for a hot-headed and much-vaunted young Gryffindor. Forgetting all the tension from an unknown monster stalking the halls, he hurried off to talk to a Slytherin.

Draco Malfoy had no expression when he read the announcement, of course, as befitted a cool society-trained young Serpent of pure blood, especially since he was with a group of similarly society-blooded "friends." As soon as his coterie departed their common room, though, he extricated himself from them, with only slight concern expressed due to the Chamber of Secret's opening, to do something none of them would ever have imagined. He sauntered away to meet up with a Lion.

Neville Longbottom didn't even see the message because he woke up late and ran down to breakfast without even stopping to fasten his yellow-and-black-striped tie properly, craning his head around anxiously when he entered the Great Hall to spot the oddly minded but ever cheerful Ravenclaw he considered his best friend. When, unsurprisingly, he proved not in evidence, Neville hurried out again without even grabbing a piece of toast and went right back down the corridor that housed Hufflepuff toward a certain fruit painting hanging just further down.

Harry Potter had been installed in the Hogwarts kitchens since six that morning, debating variations of cooking recipes and why they couldn't experiment with including potions ingredients with the earnest little beings that manned the staff, when Neville came in and found him still ensconced. Good mornings were passed all around and Neville settled in beside him to eat, the constant buried anxiety impressed on him by their other two friends satisfied now that he knew where Harry was and was with him.

Draco and Ron, meanwhile, found each other in the library and quickly retired behind a discreet shelf of boring textbooks, mindful that breakfast was starting and they didn't want their absence to be noticed.

"_Dueling Club!_" Ron opened, in a pained hiss.

"Not a problem," Draco returned, rolling his eyes. "His own House will keep him and anything athletic separate."

Harry's one venture into the world of sports had ended on the same day it began, when he made his House team for truly extraordinary flying ability and then got kicked off it for "playing" with the spells on the balls and brooms. The Ravenclaws had been appalled and aggrieved. Draco and Ron had been appalled and relieved. Harry was... special... enough without all the extra attention being a Quidditch star would have shone on him.

"_Lockhart_ is in charge!" Ron contradicted, having for once read something more closely than his ostensible friend/rival. Draco winced.

Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Lockhart was a celebrity of the wizarding world, and, it hadn't taken Draco and Ron long to see, an off-his-rocker-nutters-from-the-fame celebrity. Even worse, he kept trying to pull the Boy Who Lived into the spotlight with him to increase his fame by association. Ron, as Gryffindors were the ones who shared his class with the Ravenclaws, was already run ragged trying to run interference between the two. He had developed an almost paranoia concerning Lockhart, which explained his uncharacteristic closer reading of anything than the Slytherin.

"Nothing we can do now," Draco finally pronounced, responsibility and doom weighing heavy on his voice. "We'll just have to manage it as it happens."

The mandatory first meeting of the Dueling Club arrived. As it happened, Lockhart decided on a "demonstration" between two students to start things off, and called Harry up before Draco or Ron could do anything, much to their aggravation. Draco managed to get dubbed his opponent. Ron and Neville tried to press up closer to the dueling platform just in case.

"Now, we'll be practicing _Expelliarmus_ and _Protego_--" Lockhart announced.

Draco paid no attention to the nominal restrictions--Harry never heard any restrictions, and he had collected such a weird eclectic knowledge of spells in just a year and a half that Draco had no idea what he might cast and therefore had no idea what counters to have prepared. Attempting to minimize potential damage, he jumped in first with an incantation he hoped would distract his ostensible friend/charge from doing anything of his own.

"_Serpensortia!_"

A large black snake coiled out of the tip of his wand and landed on the platform with a sharp hiss. Harry immediately perked up and focused on it with the same bright interest with which he had first regarded Neville's pet toad.

Then, to Draco and Ron's horror, he opened his mouth, and the sound that emerged was nearly identical to that the snake was producing. For a second they both stood frozen, unable to imagine how to contain it, waiting for the inevitable reactions of everyone else watching. With all the rumors about the Chamber and monster flying--

"SSssSsssSSsSSSSS!"

Everyone present stared in fearful disbelief at Neville Longbottom, invisible unassuming Hufflepuff, whose fists were clenched and eyes nearly shut with the effort of producing such a burst. Harry's much more moderate hissing was completely overmasked, even when the snake startled and he had to reassure and calm it down. Draco quickly gathered his wits and banished the snake before Harry lost control, then grabbed Harry and dragged him off the platform before Lockhart recovered. Ron mobilized and grabbed Neville, and the four of them beat a fast retreat while the general shock still held.

"Bloody _idiot!_" Draco growled at Harry and Neville as they took cover in the first empty classroom they ran by, for once too shaken to keep the cool he usually took such pains of. "Do you have any idea what you just _did?_"

"Parseltongue," Harry answered promptly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and looking ridiculously pleased about it.

Neville just nodded, then, glancing with awkward nervousness at Draco and Ron, stuttered, "I w-was just... t-trying..." But he couldn't finish, because he still didn't really understand what Draco and Ron had explained to him and what he could talk about in front of Harry. He did much better when Draco and Ron weren't around.

"Now everyone's going to be saying _you're_ the Heir of Slytherin, idiot!" Ron told him in exasperation, not even noticing he was repeating Draco's apellation. Neville wilted.

"That doesn't make sense," Harry interjected, looking puzzled.

"It doesn't have to. Rumors aren't logical," Draco snapped. "You're a _Parselmouth_, Harry?"

Harry brightened again. "Apparently. You guys ought to try too. I heard someone mention You-Know-Who could talk to snakes, but snakes can't hear, so I looked it up. It must be not really a language so much as magic some ancient wizard invented that sort of translates meaning from a form one of them understands to the other and back. I'm trying to figure out exactly how."

"_Why_?" Ron asked, looking at him like he was loony (a constant suspicion whenever Harry mentioned his oddball "findings," the first of which had been muggle celebrities' baby names).

"Because I want to be able to do that and talk to spiders. That snake really didn't have anything to say."

Draco squeezed his eyes shut in silent pain. Ron made a strangling sound. He was afraid of spiders.

"T-That'd be cool," Neville asserted. He didn't know about Ron's fear.

Harry beamed at him. Then he suddenly straightened and his eyes took on a distracted gleam that made Draco and Ron glance at each other in alarm. "Hey, I know how we can take care of that Heir of Slytherin thing! You can't be an heir if you're not descended from him, right?"

Neville just shrugged tentatively. Draco and Ron glanced at each other again, wondering what he thought he was getting to.

"And he's not," Ron agreed, cluelessly. "Just saying he's not won't--"

"No, let's prove he _is_."

All three of them stopped and stared at him. Harry's eyes were still aglow. Still in the thrall of genius or madness.

"And if _you_ are, Nev, then just about everybody else must be too! Let's prove there's a hundred Heirs of Slytherin!"

The other three stared at each other, lost in what to say. Draco finally cleared his throat. "How?"

Harry looked at him with vague incomprehension at the question. "Tracing family trees and all. There must be family trees for lots of different people, right? We'll just put them all together and point them back to Slytherin."

Madness, not genius. Draco thought nervously of future things. Ron thought apprehensively of how long and tedious such a monumental task would be, tracing any line all the way back to medieval times.

"Okay," Neville said quietly. "What do you want us to do?"

"Just get together all the family trees you can find," Harry directed. "Any and all. I'll get everything else ready."

He moved off to do so, brisk and oblivious. Draco and Ron looked at each other, shrugged resignedly, and went to obey, sparing a dirty look for Neville as they passed him. True, their task was much lighter than it could have been, but _volunteering_? Neville bore it with only a brief swallow as an outward sign of discomfort, determined to do whatever his friend wanted him to in support. Especially since, really, he was only doing it for Neville.

The next morning the entire Hogwarts population spent the breakfast period staring in amassed silence at the massive pyramid of parchment that had appeared at some point on the wall of the Great Hall, the name Salazar Slytherin at the top outlined in bright purple to make it quite noticeable, tracing down to more names progressively than could possibly be accurate.

"Half the castle on there, you think?" Ron asked his seatmate rhetorically, without even knowing who it was. Glancing over to find out would have required glancing away from the makeshift tapestry. Then he squinted. "Dweezil Ollerton... Moxie the Madcap..." He stuffed his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing. Harry must have filled in spots with random names to make it easier.

"As if that could _possibly_ be true!" Draco's seatmate snorted, although he wasn't paying enough attention to know who that was either. "Of all the ridiculous farces!"

"Not very clever, taping all that parchment together rather than an enlarging charm," Draco agreed, absently critiquing since that was what was expected. That charm certainly wouldn't have produced the triangular shape though, which did seem most practical for a family tree. And it was actually a rather clever choice since no one would suspect a Ravenclaw of such a simple method. He noted, with abstract admiration, that his, Ron's, Neville's and Harry's names were all prominently placed as possible Heirs of Slytherin. So were Lockhart's and the Headmaster's.

Neville spent only a moment in the Hall staring at the masterpiece before slipping out again and trotting quickly away toward the kitchen. He found Harry there, the house elf staff buzzing around him cleaning up the evidence of myriad quills, inks, parchments, Spellotape and Famous Wizards cards, passed out under a table with a triumphant smile on his face. One elf tucked a blanket around him as it worked.

Rumors of the Heir died down over the next few days, since even though the tree was obviously fake no one could be quite sure exactly who was excluded as a possibility without more records than were on hand in the school library. Neville was not one of the strongest remaining contenders. Neither, to Draco and Ron's relief, was Harry. Both were secretly concerned about how he could be a Parselmouth, though they shared the concern with no one, not even each other.

Speculation remained rife, though, on the situation in general since another attack was discovered to have occurred the very night previous to the tapestry's appearance--was in fact determined to have taken place right after the Dueling Club--prompting questions on whether someone was attempting to confuse their presence or someone else was attempting to reveal the truth they didn't dare speak. Speculation would only grow when after that the attacks stopped, never to be started up again. The Chamber was finally concluded to have closed as mysteriously as it opened.

Harry, in the midst of his random assortment of trivia and whims fostered in the first environment he had ever felt welcome, never realized the significance of one act among multiple intended to provide someone else the same pleasure. He gave the ghost Moaning Myrtle a Dictation Quill for the blank diary thrown into her bathroom that obviously no one else wanted. Then he went on to helping Ron plan Lockhart's framing as the Heir, with Draco to make his father on the school board vote for his sacking and Neville to stammer to key people that he wasn't really a Parselmouth, he'd only been repeating what the Defense Professor taught him. They used his falsified family tree as evidence.


	3. Year Three: Boggarts

A/N: Huzzah! _An update!_ *bows to wild applause* Yep, 'tis truly here, after all of... oh, what, four months? ^^; Sorry folks.

This actually isn't the third year oneshot I've been wrestling for so long with (that one involves Sirius and hippogriffs and, well, tiny-little-faint-resembling-bits-of plot), but I still haven't given up on it, so hopefully it will be next. Thank chaos griffin for the idea of writing any little snippets that came to mind in this AU... this one just turned into a full oneshot of its own. :) So there's more coming (at some point)! And if anybody has any ideas of their own, mention them in a review and I might just wind up taking them and running with them... though there's no guarantee where they'll end up. ^_^ Now onward!

.

**The Deep Dark Secret of Harry Potter**

The boggart class was one that Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor Remus Lupin expected to be met with apprehension but much talk--no one liked facing their worst fear, after all, but there was sometimes comfort in learning what it was and definitely in discovering the ability to defeat it. And, after all, few thirteen-year-olds had truly traumatic or terrifying worst fears rather than some insect or bedtime story figure.

He had no idea then just what would come from introducing boggarts to this particular group of third years.

The Slytherins were the first House to file in for the lesson, and went through it about as he had generally expected, until the line came to Draco Malfoy. Lupin knew a bit about the child, in that his instantaneously recognizable physical resemblance to Lucius Malfoy was apparently matched in personality, but also that he was supposed to be cultivating Harry Potter as a reasonably close friend. It concerned Lupin slightly, the child of a Death Eater consorting with the Boy Who Lived, but Dumbledore smiled over it and they were after all both still just children, not deserving to be blamed for the sins of their fathers.

As the offspring of a Death Eater, same as several other Slytherins present, Lupin expected Draco's boggart to be much the same as theirs had been--some grotesque imaginative version of a muggle, perhaps, or a more standard frightening monster or product from a horror story. But when Draco stepped up, looking nervous but confident and holding his wand at the ready, the boggart paused, started shifting--and morphed into the figure of Harry Potter.

For a moment Lupin and the Slytherins just stared, and the boggart Harry seemed to simply stand there. But Draco, Draco stood transfixed, and saw a gleam enter the doppelganger's eyes--a gleam he knew too well; a gleam that meant thinking, a gleam that meant trouble--and, energized by panic, suddenly raised his wand and started incanting "_Riddikulus_!" with a lack of dignity or regard that was completely uncharacteristic.

Lupin shook off his surprise a second later and hurried forward to lay a restraining hand on Draco's arm as the boy kept repeating it. As he did Draco's spellcasting resulted in a _bang!_ and the boggart Harry suddenly being thrown back and then stumbling forward with a dazed, vacant expression, which seemed to calm the young Malfoy even though Lupin couldn't imagine why.

"Right. Ah, five points to Slytherin for successfully overcoming it," Lupin said vaguely, wondering what on earth had just happened. Draco and Harry were supposed to get along, weren't they? By all accounts, and his personal observation, Harry was a bright, interested child who seemed to have no enemies. But Draco Malfoy was secretly afraid of him?

As he dismissed the class Draco was already pulling himself together, reassuming his usual imperfect air of cool disdain, and beginning to spin an obvious tale of explanation to his interested yearmates as they left, which Lupin momentarily wished he could overhear. But it certainly wouldn't be the truth anyway, not from a Slytherin to Slytherins--typecasting as that was. Boys that age were never open about anything they perceived as embarrassing. He would just have to wonder.

The next class to face the boggart was the Gryffindors, and Lupin readied himself for another assortment of monsters and manifested phobias. Ronald Weasley was a third-year Lion, and another seemingly close friend of Harry's. Lupin did a little discreet checking beforehand, due to the plain weirdness of the young Malfoy's reaction, and reassured himself that Ronald was apparently known to be terribly afraid of spiders. He wondered how the redhead would react if he knew Draco Malfoy feared their mutual friend.

The Gryffindor class proceeded typically. Ronald Weasley stepped up, freckles standing out on his slightly pale face, eyes determined, and clenching his wand in his fist by his side. The boggart paused, shifted--and morphed into Harry Potter.

A shout went up from the other Gryffindors, unlike the silence of the Slytherins. Lupin stood arrested again in dumb amazement. Ron stared at the innocuous figure of the cheerful Ravenclaw, which looked back and began to assume a round-eyed expression, as if it was surprised, as if it had learned something--and began to open its mouth.

"RIDDIKULUS!" Ron bellowed, and the doppelganger Harry was thrown back with a _bang!_ and reappeared trussed up head to foot and gagged. Ron, still staring, let out a slightly hysterical-sounding giggle and started to raise his wand again.

"Thank you, Mister Weasley, five points to Gryffindor," Lupin intervened quickly, managing to pull a facade of teacherly calm together, and got through the rest of the lesson as methodically and quickly as he could. The third years swarmed their compatriot the second he dismissed them, pulling him along toward the door in their midst, but Lupin overheard him begin recounting something that apparently, inexplicably, did involve spiders.

Lupin felt lost. _Both_ of Harry's friends secretly feared him? Why? Did anyone else have any idea? Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy were known to be rivals in almost everything, who barely got along--could it be coincidence that their greatest fears were the same?

The Hufflepuffs were the third House to undergo the boggart, and Lupin felt almost more apprehensive over it than he could remember even during the war against Voldemort, in battles where a single spell and second could mean the difference between whether he or one of his friends made it home on their own power or under a mediwitch's wand that night. But it was ridiculous. _Everyone_ knew--everyone _swore_ Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom were best friends, not just close, and anyway Neville was the type of generally timid personality who was likeliest to fear some adult's disapproval more than shapeless creatures or cackles in the night.

Neville's boggart paused a second longer than it had for Draco or Ron, while the boy gulped and kept his eyes fixed on it unblinkingly, wand already aimed in a slightly trembling grip. Then it morphed into Harry Potter.

Neville saw the boggart face of his best friend look at him, then start to turn away from him, averting its face and assuming an expression of cold disinterest. "R-riddikulus!" he squeaked, and there was a _pop!_, and he and everyone else in the classroom stared down in startled horror at the toad now sitting ignominiously in Harry's place.

Several Hufflepuffs giggled.

"Class dismissed," Lupin said without even bothering to let the few others waiting take their turn, sinking into his chair and staring sightlessly at the wall as the children filed out, Neville's piping voice lost in the multitude of chatter. Even Neville Longbottom. All three of Harry's closest friends--the people who presumably knew him best--were afraid of him. Not just afraid, but he was their _greatest _fear. What if it wasn't them who had the strange secret after all--what if he and the other faculty didn't know _Harry_ as well as they had thought? They knew his parents; James Potter had been one of Lupin's best friends, and Harry occasionally resembled one parent or the other in his behavior, but they were only his teachers. What if--there had to a reason for his friends to _fear_ him...

Only the class of the Ravenclaws remained. Lupin wondered what Harry's greatest fear would turn out to be, what deep frightening secret the boggart might reveal. He'd intended to not let Harry get near it, considering his history with Voldemort and how much the Dark Lord's appearance would upset the other children in class, but... maybe it was better to know...

* * *

The news of Harry Potter's boggart spread like wildfire around the castle, in many intonations and versions within the same day. First were impressed whispers, rapidly circulated without regard for classes in session or affiliations of the listener: the Boy-Who-Lived feared _nothing_. He had stepped up to the boggart, and the boggart had just _vanished_. He was fearless!

Next came murmured contradictions, even more avidly exchanged since they built on the initial astonishing news. The boggart hadn't vanished, it had just gotten extremely small. Harry Potter's greatest fear was some kind of tiny, shiny little metal object, although speculations were more than slightly muddled about what exactly that signified. Muggle items seemed most logical. Perhaps it was the killing method of that hand weapon--a gun? A bullet? Was Harry most afraid of death after all?

Further detail heightened the confusion and interest. The tiny object had been a shoe. Dubious though the possibility was that Harry was afraid of footwear, it was nevertheless analyzed, dissected and discussed with as much attention as seventh-year students generally devoted to their research theses. Harry Potter was generally held to be nutters, but this was a new height. A shoe? Had someone put something terrible in his shoes once, which he had never forgotten? But why had such a tiny little metal representation appeared rather than a real shoe? What made the difference?

Questions, as they often did when indulged in long enough, spun off onto tangents. Was Harry wearing shoes? Had anyone ever noticed?

A muggleborn student finally provided the definitive identification: the shoe was a gamepiece. A token for a muggle board game called Monopoly.

Monopoly? Was it a disturbing game? Did the shoe symbolize something in it?

Muggleborns and muggle-raised scratched their heads, frowned, and shrugged. Monopoly was... about real estate. Collecting spaces--er, land. Or, well, it had to do with money... you won by owning everything and getting everyone else bankrupt.

Was Harry afraid of money, then, rumors ran. Of titles and deeds? His responsibility as the sole Potter heir when he came of age?

Then gossip reversed, and gained momentum, like a flash flood. He was afraid of _losing_. Harry was afraid of not having enough money. Harry was afraid of not living up to his family name and fortune when he inherited--Harry knew something no one else did that was eating away at him until it was his greatest fear. And he was afraid of losing money...

Harry Potter was actually poor!

_The Potters were bankrupt!_

"There you are!" Ron snapped late that afternoon when he, Draco and Neville finally located the errant Ravenclaw placidly reading up on a tree limb down by the lake. His female House- and year-mates were some of the most invested and active gossipmongers in the entire school, so he was feeling hassled just from association. "We've been looking for you since Defense!"

"Huh? What for?" Harry glanced up at the sun through the foliage, blinking owlishly as he raised his gaze from his book. "When'd it get this late?"

"Never mind that," Draco commanded, feeling relieved that Harry had turned up safe and soundly ignorant of the general hullabaloo but still too wound up with the mounting worry to be able to dispel all of it immediately. "Was your boggart really a tiny metal _shoe_?"

"From Monopoly?" Neville piped up, proving he had mastered usage and pronunciation of the previously foreign concept. He had a better ability for learning muggle things than the other two, an advantage which, though small, was important to him. The only other thing he showed any talent for was Herbology, which none of the other three particularly cared about.

"Oh, yeah, it was."

"_Why_?" burst from three throats at once.

Harry sat up gingerly on the tree limb, stretching his arms (after carefully laying the book facedown over the branch) and angling his head to work out kinks in his neck, and shrugged. "I choked on that once when I was little and theoretically playing with Dudley. I don't actually remember it, I was too small, but can you imagine what it must have felt like--something blocking your air all of a sudden, your body trying to keep breathing anyway, your mouth probably gasping like a fish and thinking dear Merlin this is actually happening to me and I don't wanna die--"

"That's enough," Ron said hastily, paling. Draco, being naturally pale, looked mostly the same but was silent, and Neville looked slightly ill. "You seriously--"

"Harry!"

All four boys turned, surprised, to see some fourth year girl none of them had ever spoken to hurrying up behind them. She stopped underneath Harry's branch, panting slightly, ignoring the other three, and looked up at him earnestly. "Hey, Harry, I just wanted to let you know--I know you don't need charity or anything, but... with all you did during the last war, you and your parents, well--if there's anything you could use, you just let me know, okay? I mean it, really."

"Er, okay," Harry agreed, nodding and smiling politely. "I'm fine thanks though. I was just thinking about maybe looking for a secondhand bookstore in Hogsmeade next trip that might have this next volume--"

"I'll get it for you," the girl said instantly. "What's the title?"

Harry hesitated, then gave it to her, and she hurried off again after assuring him not to even think of buying it himself.

"Why secondhand?" Neville asked curiously after she was gone.

"Used books have history," Harry explained, swinging his legs from his perch. "And really interesting notes in the margins sometimes. But she seemed awfully determined. What was that she was saying about me and the last war?"

"Probably some stupid rumor about you losing money since you're a war orphan," Draco promptly said bracingly, having had time during their search for him to come up with an explanation for the comments he was sure to overhear. "You never know what people will believe next. Can't waste time listening to that kind of thing."

Harry nodded agreeably. Ron and Draco exchanged brief glances of relief, and Ron cajoled the Ravenclaw down and away from the rest of his book with the lure of dinner.

Remus Lupin, up at the staff table, watched as the four entered the Great Hall and split up toward their respective Houses, Harry cheerfully exchanging final comments with the other three as though they were each, individually, the best of friends with him. As though their secret fears didn't exist. He should tell Dumbledore about it, make sure the Headmaster at least was aware of the strange dynamics playing out in that quartet... but with that facade, seemingly flawless despite their only being thirteen years old, who would believe him?


	4. Year One: Fluffy

A/N: So I was browsing through some of my (really, really, really) old scraps of Harry Potter fanfics and came across this basic idea, and it occurred that it really fits this crazy little Ravenclaw Harry pretty well. So I did some tweaking, adding, and re-characterizing, and after letting it sit awhile I've decided it will do. So you here are. :) I do have a third year oneshot involving Sirius half done, but there's no telling when I'll actually finish it considering I've been _really bloody tired_ for what feels like the past _year_. *Grumble* Anyways... enjoy.

.

Year One:

**Owls are for Normal People**

Rubeus Hagrid was the first to hear part of Harry Potter's plan.

"There's this giant mutant dog in that third floor corridor, see," Harry confided to him, with wide, trusting eyes, over cups of tea one afternoon early in the term in Hagrid's hut down on the Hogwarts grounds. "Shut up in a tiny little room—I'm sure somebody must feed it every day, but what about exercise? And the poor thing must be awfully lonely."

Hagrid blinked misty eyes and patted the boy's head, touched at such rare concern for one of his monsters. "Ah, don't you worry about Fluffy Harry, he's got an important job right now guarding—" Then he stopped himself hastily, and peered at Harry anxiously to see if his slip had been noticed.

"Is he yours then?" Harry asked brightly. "I know this is awfully presumptuous, but you think you could maybe take me up there sometime and introduce me, so he'd trust me? I mean, you already have Fang too, and I've got plenty of time between classes, I could slip him bits of treats at least to keep him happy—"

Hagrid had to suppress a sniffle, fully understanding the boy's desire for a dog from his own wee years. What lad didn't cherish one? "Sure, Harry," he decided, forgetting all about wondering how Harry had found out about Fluffy in the first place and a just-formed mental note to mention the first year's plan to Dumbledore. "Tell you what, Fluffy will calm right down if you just whistle him a snatch of something as you come in..."

.

Harry's friends, Ron Weasley of Gryffindor and Neville Longbottom of Hufflepuff, were the next to discover his intentions.

"I think Fluffy's starting to perk up whenever I visit now," he announced happily in a suitably hushed tone as he plopped down between them at a library table several months later. "Last time I'm sure he whined instead of growled as I left—well, at least one throat anyway—"

Neville Longbottom blinked owlishly at him, and Ron Weasley's nose scrunched up in confusion.

"Who's Fluffy?"

"The three-headed dog in the third floor corridor," Harry explained, serene in the face of their shock and horror. "I'm training him—first just to stop thinking of me as an enemy, I think I've got that far already, and then getting him used to me being there a little longer at a time, and then a little closer, and then touching. After he looks forward to just me I'll start cutting back the treats I'm giving him and turn them into rewards while I teach him commands—"

"Harry," Neville interrupted, only a very little bit faintly, "you're a dog trainer?"

Harry blinked back at him, train of thought briefly derailed. "No. I've found a couple excellent books though," he said honestly. "It's called the positive reinforcement technique, it works since all dogs have an instinctive desire to please—"

"Harry," Ron interrupted, very garishly flushed thanks to the genes accompanying his red hair, "are you talking about expecting a—a _hellhound_ to act like... like Cottonboll the Crup?"

Harry blinked once more, then looked at him reproachfully. "Even if Fluffy is some kind of mutant he's obviously still mostly dog, and dogs aren't vicious unless they've had a terrible upbringing. Or role model," he added as an apparent afterthought. "But he's Hagrid's, so no worry there."

"Hagrid is... big," Neville pointed out of the half-giant, with careful tact. "I'm not sure he'd think animals are dangerous when we would."

"Besides," Ron put in, "what do you want to train a hellhound to _do_?"

Harry blinked at them several times, looking vaguely thoughtful. "Well, I was planning on starting with sit and shake..."

.

Harry's third best friend, Draco Malfoy of Slytherin, was the last to be informed of Harry's results.

"Hey Draco, you won't believe what I found last night!" Filius Flitwick happened to overhear as the boys passed his open classroom door. He smiled indulgently as he listened while straightening the room in preparation for his fifth years' arrival in fifteen minutes. Harry was such an endearing lad; so enthusiastic about everything, so bright and eager to learn.

"What?"

"There's this trapdoor in Fluffy's room that leads to this puzzle room thing! There was a bunch of keys flying all around and a locked door—imagine what kind of treasure might be on the other side! You managed to smuggle your broom to school, didn't you—"

Flitwick paled, smile vanishing in an instant as he comprehended what his hapless little Raven was talking about, and took off toward the faculty lounge as fast as his wand could enhance his unfortunately short legs. How had the boy gotten in? Circe's swine, if he'd made it far enough to tangle into the real wards—! Merlin bless that Pomona hadn't even transplanted her killer snares yet!

.

Poppy Pomfrey, the Hogwarts nurse, was the one to see the end to Harry's year-long escapade.

"Fluffy's hurt!" Harry shouted at her, disheveled, clearly disoriented, and possibly in shock, with a bloodied three-headed dog in tow that sent the second year whose burn she had been healing pelting out of the hospital wing screaming.

"I'll call Hagrid, Mister Potter, while you sit down and drink this," she told him firmly, grabbing a calming draught from a shelf and pushing it to him.

"But Fluffy's the one who needs it—"

He turned blindly toward the dog; Pomfrey turned him back toward the nearest bed, guiding him with one hand on the middle of his back, and wrapped his fingers around the vial.

"Drink."

"Fluffy—" he argued.

"Drink, Mister Potter! Fluffy will be fine!"

Finally she firecalled Hagrid, with great misgiving, when Harry refused to settle down and let his medicine take effect for worry over the monstrous beast. The fireplace swelled to let Hagrid through, and the massive man let out a bellow of grief as he saw the animal's condition. The dog then refused to be parted from the boy, as well as growling at her when she tried to get near, and her orderly hospital wing degenerated further into a three-ring circus.

Relative calm only returned when the dog had been treated, installed on two joined and reinforced beds beside Harry's and passed out from a successful dose administered by Hagrid—by which time, of course, Harry had revived and Dumbledore swept in, eyes twinkling, to collect his story.

"We were just making another try at getting to the end of the obstacle course—" the eleven-year-old tried defending himself.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled even merrier. He'd had a grand old time all year watching the little hero's adventures from afar, while his professors sweated and swore to each other, scrambling to modify the corridor to both not harm a first year and still contain a dangerous intruder. "But choosing a three-headed dog as escort?"

"That chess queen set her knight chasing me last time!" Harry protested. "It's only fair I got reinforcements too!" Then his face crumpled into distress, and he petted the massive head drooling into his lap with affection blind to the beast's ugliness. "I didn't know trolls were that mean, I shouldn't have let Fluffers take it on..."

"Hagrid is confident he'll be able to effect a full recovery, Harry," Dumbledore consoled him. "Fluffy will move down to the Forbidden Forest tomorrow, where he's sure to be very happy."

For a second Harry continued to look understandably distressed at losing his friend. Then his expression suddenly flashed to rapid calculation and a grin, which were both shoved quickly behind demure innocence. "Whatever's best for Fluffy," he sighed piously.

One of the faults of the man commonly considered the greatest wizard of the age was that he had strict convictions about using some of his esoteric knowledge. If he'd peeked at Harry's thoughts at that moment, even he might have lost a bit of composure at the boy's half-formed ideas involving a dog who answered to him in a forest full of potentially dangerous wild magic.

"Just one more thing, Harry," Dumbledore leaned forward, his own expression innocuous and tone inconsequential. "What happened in the final chamber?"

Harry scowled in disappointment. "Professor Quirrell got there first; he must have found the treasure. And he dragged me in front of this mirror and then Fluffy came leaping through the flames at him so..." He squirmed, but under Dumbledore's gaze continued, "Well it didn't seem fair for a professor to compete anyway and he'd taken my wand and Fluffy was still trying so hard for me so—"

"Yes, Harry?" Dumbledore pressed, ever so slightly not quite completely gently.

Harry looked away to the side and poked his tongue out between his lips, then confessed resentfully, "So I chucked the rock I found in my pocket at him and it hit him on the head and knocked him into the fire—but I didn't know my aim was that good and he was asking for—!"

Pomfrey, just bustling over to check his condition again, couldn't refrain from gaping at what she heard. Harry snapped his mouth shut, then glanced at Dumbledore and amended, clearly inventing as he spoke, "The rock was... this really really magically powerful rock... really rare and powerful and valuable because it... jumped out of my pocket all on its own and started hitting him." He nodded firmly, cementing the validity of his story via personal conviction rather than logic or evidence.

Dumbledore nodded gravely. "An unfortunate tragedy. Professor Quirrell will be missed next year."

"And none of it was Fluffy's fault either," Harry added, anxious to affirm that point.

"Dogs will be dogs," Dumbledore agreed. "Why don't you get some rest now, my boy. You had quite an adventure this evening."

Harry sighed and crossed his arms as he leaned back on his bed. Very, very low, he grumbled, "And I still never found the treasure."


	5. On a Stage, Fighting Fate

A/N: You guys owe much love to my little sister Niabi for getting me discussing how zany!Harry could handle the TriWizard challenges, because this uncharacteristically early update is your result! (If any of you are Naruto fans you might consider checking out and reviewing her oneshot.)

The problem with my sister being my brainstorm-with-er as well as my beta reader is that she already knows some of what happens after this, so lemme know if the ending isn't clear enough to anybody here. (We will be hearing from Moody in the future. Heeheeheehee... heehee... heeheeheehee...)

And darnit, Sirius' chapter *will* be next, because the rest of the shreds of plot I've accumulated depend on getting it out first. Unless I finally scrap it for a paragraph that starts "Okay here's what happened fill in the funny parts yourself." Sirius is taking up permanent residence in the doghouse, I swear... Anyway! Who wants to take bets on whether Hogwarts will still be standing once Harry gets to the end of the Tournament? :D

.

Year Four:

**On a Stage, Fighting Fate**

It was a council of war that convened that night, the faces of its members grim under the flickering torchlight in the stone chamber, partially shrouded by hoods protecting identities against wandering enforcers of curfew. The Goblet of Fire had flared. The historical TriWizard Tournament was open, and disaster had fallen.

_"Harry Potter," Dumbledore intoned. The fourth slip fluttered down from aged fingers into the blue fey-flickers of the lighted Goblet and disappeared, consumed._

_For a moment the entire hall was deathly silent._

_Then—_

_Harry Potter popped up from his table, face a study in bewilderment. He blurted, "But I didn't think it would actually _work_!"_

"I will kill him," Draco Malfoy grumbled, doing an excellent job substituting hatred for mind-numbing panic. "That stupid little..."

Ronald Weasley, not having the advantage of Draco's paternal instruction in always saving face, hadn't quite made it out the horrified state yet. "I bet the papers are already changing their headlines," he moaned, lost in despair. "And they'll all be here in the morning, _Boy-Who-Lived Becomes Fourth TriWizard Champion_—"

"Nobody looked very happy about it at the feast. Maybe they'll all stay that way," Neville Longbottom ventured, reluctant because he didn't want his best friend ostracized and yet, as a member of Hufflepuff House, had already been narrowly observed for possible "consorting with the enemy" after the debacle.

Draco saw a gleam of hope, and seized it with an iron glove. "That's it," he ordered, straightening imperceptibly. "We have to make sure that Harry doesn't win, but we also make sure he stays unpopular through this. That no one roots for him, no one talks to him, no one pays attention to him."

"How?" Ron asked, not so mired in foresight that he forgot his still-native suspicion of any plans from a Malfoy.

Draco turned cold eyes fraying around the edges to him. "If he cheats," he pronounced. "It's as much an established part of the tournament as the actual tasks; the other competitors are certain to. The winner will be the champion who cheats best."

"That could actually convince him," Neville admitted resignedly.

Draco nodded to him. "We'll just make sure Harry cheats more obviously."

"Hold on a minute!" Ron protested. "Harry's no _Slytherin_! This is barmy!"

"It's the only way," Draco retaliated. "Fame makes muggles mad. Harry is muggle-raised, powerful though he is—"

Ron turned red and clenched his fists, but he couldn't argue with facts no matter how close they sounded to leading into pureblood dogma. Harry was the one who'd told them stories of crazy muggle celebrities—stories upon stories upon _stories_. If he ever found how big a celebrity he was to the wizarding world...

"Your rat?" Draco reminded Ron, pressing ruthlessly. "That Deathday party? The Psallo potion?"

Ron and Neville both winced at the memories brought up.

_"Buy flowers," the scrawny first year chirped when the spell failed. "Orchids or lilies or anything with big stamens. Then rub off all the pollen into a container and hide it up your sleeve to douse Scabbers when you try the spell again. He'll turn yellow! As long he doesn't sneeze it off."_

_"But if I make a fist and then chop my hand off that'd be basically round, I can just roll harder to make up for size—no, c'mon, I'd just have Madam Pomfrey put it back on after the bowling's over—"_

_"Mister Potter! Your turn to demonstrate!" Up went the vial and down Harry's throat went the contents, swallowed without hesitation. Hardly a second passed before his chest swelled like a bullfrog's and he stupefied the entire classroom by belting out, "On top of spaghettiii, all covered with cheeeese, I lost my poor meatbaalll, when somebody sneeeezed..."_

"Okay, okay," Ron snarled. "But Harry would never cheat if he realizes that's what he's doing—"

"All right, we don't tell him," Draco said crisply, taking the concession. The stakes were too high to add time gloating or arguing further like he normally would. "We'll still have to run interference between Harry and the rest of the school, which is probably going to be a lot more stressful, so let's take turns focusing on the tasks. We'd better not leave him alone to meet up and plan very often."

"We don't even know what the tasks will be yet," Neville pointed out.

Draco refused to be daunted. "Then we'd better start finding out."

.

Harry entered the arena, tiny compared to the restless Hungarian Horntail facing him, but showing no signs of fear. Ron, Neville and Draco, having abandoned their usual cliques to sit together in the stands, were worse off. Neville kept forgetting to breathe and having to be slapped on the back in reminder by the girl behind him.

Harry stopped after only a few steps, well out of the dragon's range, and took something out of his pocket that the audience strained to see. He waved his wand and whatever sat in his hand swelled into an odd yellow concoction almost the size of his head. Another wand wave and it hefted out of his hand, then floated erratically toward the dragon.

"What in Morgana's name is that?" Draco snapped, irritated by the unknown. "It looks like a piece of—"

"Shush," Ron muttered, uncomfortable and sullen at letting a Malfoy call him on it.

The dragon burned the yellow puff as soon as it came in range. Undaunted, Harry pulled out another one and repeated the engorging and levitating process, one object after another, varying the flight paths and directions of approach until he finally got one close enough that the dragon snapped at it instead of flaming.

The yellow thing vanished in the dragon's maw. A second later the world in its immediate vicinity spiraled into a clap of sparks and smoke with a bizarre shriek and then—as the rules of the established universe groped for their previous definitions—there sat a mind-resetting chimera of a dragon... _canary_.

Harry strolled up and retrieved his golden egg while the audience gawked and the former-dragon sat frozen in shock.

"You call _that_ cheating?" Draco hissed sarcastically, again diverting fear for the future into a more controllable emotion. "He walked into a ring and defeated a _dragon_ with the bloody _candy in his pocket_! Dragon tamers will be lining up taking _notes_!"

"I'd like to've seen you come up with something better," Ron snapped back. "You should've heard what he was planning to try on his own! And he did cheat, he got Fred and George to tailor their recipe to hopefully work on dragons—"

"It won't make a difference their claiming responsibility after the fact," Draco gritted. Down on the field the dragon keepers appeared and converged on their charge, which was coming out of its shock and showing clear signs of panic as it flailed over itself and... cheeped.

"Looks like it's molting already," Neville muttered, leaning forward and squinting. "So it should be fine in a few minutes."

Draco ignored that show in favor of the judges, staring as though his concentration could affect their outcome. He humphed. "At least Karkaroff's biased."

.

"Second task," Draco declared, hooded and grim, especially after what he maintained was Ron's failure. He and Ron had been strenuously refusing to be seen speaking to each other for the last few days. "We know what it is?"

"Yeah. The mermaids are going to take something the champion has to get back," Neville said, shifting uncomfortably. "So we... uh... kind of have a problem."

Draco allowed himself to close his eyes and take a deep breath. "What problem?"

Neville fidgeted some more. "Um, Harry's been exploring the lake since first year?"

Draco opened his eyes and leaned forward with a frown. "Define 'exploring the lake'—"

"Well he happened to mention once that he couldn't swim so I started teaching him and... um... there's this plant called gillyweed that lets you breathe underwater..."

Ron groaned and hung his head. "Sod it, he's probably even already memorized all the library books for learning Mermish by now."

Gloom settled over the failing conspirators. How could they possibly sabotage Harry's chances in a task that could have been designed specifically for him to shine?

.

"Sorry I'm late," Neville puffed, entering their secret meeting chamber to the echoes of his trainers slapping the stone floor.

"What's she doing here?" Ron demanded, scrabbling to pull the books and parchment spread in the middle of their circle away from the intruder's view.

"This is Luna Lovegood. She's going to be Harry's hostage in the lake," Neville explained.

Draco frowned. "It's a person they have to retrieve, not an item?"

"Of course," Luna Lovegood said dreamily. "Otherwise they'd have to retrieve their wands, which of course they can't do without their wands."

The three boys exchanged blank glances, at a loss how to respond to such a circular statement, before deciding that didn't matter and shaking themselves back to the present.

"Oh, er, yeah," Ron said, switching to merely shuffling the parchment about as she stepped closer so it looked like he hadn't been doing anything. The half-formed plan they had been conceiving whirred in his head and he went on enthusiastically as the plan clicked and he realized Neville's idea, "Yeah, that's wicked for you, we were just talking about what a great—opportunity it's going to be, getting to go down there—"

Luna sat beside Neville and leaned forward, fixing the gaze of her unfocused protuberant eyes on the disconcerted redhead. He nudged one particularly telling sheet of notes under a more innocuous one and tried not to look as uncomfortable as he felt.

"Of course it is, with the chance to observe gyrating hiroscolions in their natural environment," she agreed. "Not many people believe in them, though—"

"Yes, but we mean the opportunity to investigate the legend," Draco cut in, impatient in the face of babble, also successfully adjusting their idea to the presence of this addition. He maintained his Malfoy hauteur as a defensive shield as she turned her eyes to him, and went on as though he didn't even notice, "It's said the merfolk hide a secret grotto somewhere in their village, you know, which contains a portal to a labyrinth under the seafloor that... er..."

"Is home to a giant golden sea turtle," Ron jumped in, drawing in several other myths and objects they'd been researching while Draco casually flipped open an incriminating book to the bibliography, thus hiding the cover and title. "The turtle is, um, the only known source of the—Oracle Pearls, which grow on its tongue one at a time over a hundred years—"

"Pearls the Ministry's prophecy spheres are modeled after," Draco added smoothly as Ron's inspiration ran out and Neville opened his mouth to take his turn—Neville was a terrible liar. "They're so rare it's only a rumor, of course, but it's said those pearls have the power to grant any one wish of the person who finds one—"

"And answer any one question," Ron finished with a glare to the blond for not having paid attention to the oracle part. "So it's an incredible opportunity, see, that—uh..."

It was those eyes, those creepy eyes that made him forget what he was thinking every time they turned on him.

"Since the merfolk are normally very wary of strangers, and never let them into the village," Neville put in quietly, grounding their talespinning back in reality. "Harry's been going into the lake for years, and they've still never invited him in—so this task is likely to be the only time there's ever a chance."

Draco and Ron looked at him in surprise for coming up with such neat ending logic. Luna looked mistily fascinated. "No wonder Harry perseveres..."

Ron breathed a silent sigh of relief and yanked a whole stack of parchment-stuffed books behind his back while her attention was firmly elsewhere. She bought it. It would never even occur to Harry not to buy it; that was just the kind of thing he loved. There was no way the two of them would be back up before the very last gasp of their gillyweed ran out, probably hours after the other champions finished...

.

Only thirty minutes into the hour-long time limit for the second task, Harry surfaced in front of the judges' panel with Luna, gill slits on his neck fluttering, not so much as a scratch visible on him. His three friends stared in disbelieving horror.

"How...?" Ron uttered in a strangled murmur, clenching and unclenching his fists around nothing. "_How_...?"

Draco leaned and stared so hard he almost fell off his seat, for once unmindful of his dignity, until he figured it out. "Lovegood's unconscious! Oh bloody sodding—"

Neville quietly wilted. Undone by one tiny detail they hadn't thought of: the hostages were put in an enchanted sleep. Luna was Harry's friend—if he couldn't wake her up, of course he would focus on getting her to safety, even if it meant missing out on such a wonderful potential adventure.

The judges held up their scores, and cemented the doom the boys had already felt crushing them down. So much for not needing to worry about Harry actually winning the tournament—he was so far ahead of the other champions in points it would probably go down as an underdog record.

.

"All right," Draco said, with frightening calm, when the trio convened for another strategy session. "I think we have to plan for Harry becoming TriWizard Champion after all..." Neither of the others disagreed. "So that means we'll have to make sure that he wins in such a way that no one will consider it a true victory."

Ron and Neville kindly didn't point out how Draco's similar plans had crashed and burned spectacularly so far, although Ron had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from doing so. Instead he maturely only asked, "How?"

Draco glowered at him anyway. Then he drew himself up and announced, "_I_ will handle the last task. I'll let you know if you can help as I need it. We cannot risk anything going wrong again."

Ron swelled in indignation, even though the last sentence had been delivered in the flat tone of a last bulwark against creeping hysteria. "It wasn't our fault—!"

"No. It was Harry's," Draco agreed, still unnaturally calmly, without even fracturing the stone underneath him or splintering the wand he was running between his fingers over and over. "Harry being himself, which we haven't made proper allowance for. We have to... introduce an outside force, add one element that will irrevocably ensure our desired outcome..."

"Easy to say," Ron grumbled, picking at the dirt etched between stones. "Like what?"

"And how?" Neville ventured, chained by the impossibility.

Draco's perfect pureblood mask cracked for just a second. What spilled out was ice and mania and the product of a thousand years of instilled tradition and survival in a single family line. "I am going," he said, "to ask my father."

.

The maze of hedges filling the Quidditch Pitch was open on top, allowing easy viewing for all the spectators crowding the stands. The walls were, of course, charmed to prevent any of the contestants from rising above them to get the same advantage of perspective, given that two of the champions were Quidditch players at home on brooms, one had semi-avian heritage and one was Harry Potter.

In the stands, Draco grinned as he watched Harry enter the maze and promptly send up an elaborate configuration of scrying spells bundled into an innocuous little paper bird. His grin was a sigh of relief, preening, and Malfoy smug superiority all together as the surrounding crowd began muttering, recognizing an obvious, undeniable, _cheat_. Draco was so relieved he didn't even mind hearing Fred and George Weasley taking bets on whether Harry would win before the other champions even got into the maze.

Harry navigated the monsters, traps and riddles separating him from the TriWizard Cup unerringly thanks to the little bird no seventh year could have managed to obtain on his own, much less a fourth year (and _what_ a trial it had been keeping Harry too distracted to examine/modify/dissect the birdie after they'd gotten it to him). A ridiculously short time and uncounted mind-boggling ingenuities later he reached the center of the maze, well ahead of all competition, a grand finale to the most improbable Tournament since the one in 1628 when one contestant had managed to transfigure himself into a giant frog in a duel and swallowed both of his competitors.

The crowd cheered, since crowds loved a winner at the moment of victory no matter how many unwritten rules the winner had broken, and Harry beamed as he swept his wand forward in an arc and levitated the Cup over his head to the maximum extent the hedges allowed, then started back toward the entrance.

Halfway there an acromantula suddenly appeared out of nowhere and pounced on him. As the gigantic spider latched onto his arm Harry stumbled back, slashing at it with his wand and shouting a disarming spell. The force of Harry's magic shoved it back, but as his wand was still levitating the Cup, the shove was emphasized by the Cup slamming into the spider's side just as it crashed into the hedge.

It seemed to hit something solid; Harry later told his friends he thought on impact he heard a grunt that sounded human. Then both Cup and acromantula vanished.

Harry stared for a minute. Everybody in the stands stared for a minute. Officials boiled around the judges' platform and the maze entrance. Harry scratched his head with the bloody hand not clutching his wand.

"Was that supposed to happen?" Neville asked.

"Sure it was," Ron said, not very convincingly. "I mean, it must've... right?"

Draco did better on getting to the heart of the matter. "Can they declare _anyone_ the winner if they can't get the prize back from wherever it just went?"

Down in the maze, Harry burrowed into the hedge where the spider had disappeared. Leaves rustled for several minutes, then Harry reappeared looking a little more disheveled but with nothing else to show. He rooted around for another few minutes, pulled something out of his pocket (Fred and George Weasley promptly started taking new bets on what would happen next), and, inexplicably, stuffed his wand up his robe sleeve. As he resumed walking toward the entrance he worked whatever the stuff was between his hands, head bent over it in absorption, apparently oblivious to any other possible ambushes before he got there.

Apparently all the other creatures in the maze chose not to chance sharing the acromantula's undetermined fate. Harry made it the rest of the way unscathed.

"It was supposed to reappear right here!" one of the officials was insisting hysterically as Draco, Neville and Ron departed the stands to join the crowd at the maze entrance clamoring to know what was going on. "That Cup has been integral to the award ceremony ever since the very first Tournament was concluded—it's got so many irreplaceable enchantments—"

"That's okay," Harry said brightly as he tripped into the midst of the commotion, paper bird fluttering atop his head, the youngest unconfirmed TriWizard Champion in over a century and the very first champion to _lose_ the grand prize even before officially receiving it. While everyone stared, he held up a small, vaguely trophy-shaped lump of what looked like orange dough.

"See? We can just use this instead! Lucky I had some modeling clay..."

* * *

Full lyrics to "On Top of Spaghetti" for those curious, an American children's song to the tune of "On Top of Old Smoky" (you may stretch your own imagination to figure out how Harry heard it):

On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese,  
I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.  
It rolled off the table and onto the floor,  
and then my poor meatball rolled out of the door.  
It rolled in the garden and under a bush,  
and then my poor meatball was nothing but mush.  
The mush was as tasty as tasty could be,  
and early next summer it grew into a tree.  
The tree was all covered in beautiful moss.  
It grew great big meatballs and tomato sauce.  
So if you eat spaghetti all covered with cheese,  
hold onto your meatball and don't ever sneeze.


	6. Years OneFour: Bonus Reel

A/N: Just a leetle update - I decided to try my hand at drabbles, and now at four in the morning decided to post them. Review with suggestions for more and we'll see what comes out...

.

_Year Four: Two weeks after the Second Task_

(Word count: 100)

"Where's Harry?" Ron asked, glancing around the almost unoccupied greenhouse.

"Out with Luna," Neville said absently. He was repotting a volatile bubotuber.

"Again? I thought they only went to the Ball as friends."

The bubotuber squirmed as its glistening roots touched the new soil. One pustule scraped a piece of gravel mixed in the earth and popped. Neville ducked to avoid the glob of yellowish sap that spurted out.

"They're still trying to negotiate with the merfolk."

Ron groaned. "Sod it, we created a monster that didn't even work..."

"Yup," Neville agreed. The bubotuber leaked a noxious curl of gas.

.

_Year Two: Harry Potter meets Luna Lovegood_

(Word count: 300)

Harry was wandering outside on a rare beautiful autumn day when he noticed one of the new Ravenclaw first years stretched out on her stomach in the grass scribbling on a piece of parchment. "Whatcha doing?" he asked, crouching to get a closer look.

"Writing an essay for Care of Magical Creatures," she explained. Harry noticed the feather end of her barred quill whisked back and forth right under her nose but she never even once sneezed.

"Really? I thought that class didn't start 'til third year," he observed, sitting down beside her.

She nodded. "Daddy says it's always best to start work early, to get it out of the way."

Harry considered this advice. "Makes sense," he decided, and took out parchment and quill of his own. "What are you writing about?"

"Umgubular slashkilters. They're notorious for cutting people's legs off at the knees if they're provoked, which turns the victim's ideas forward to back and makes them speak in gibberish for the next eighteen hours. What are you going to write about?"

"I dunno. I grew up with muggles; I've never even heard of slashkilters," Harry confided. "What do you suggest?"

The blond girl smiled at him. "Well, it's always useful to learn about wrackspurts, and I think more people could benefit from exposure to blibbering humdingers..."

"Do you know who Harry's talking with?" Draco muttered to Ron after dinner that night as the mass of students jostled toward the doors.

"Oh, that's Ginny's friend," Ron dismissed, then did a double take. "Oh no—Harry and Luna? We're doomed, we're dead, we—"

"I think it's okay," Neville put in timidly, as he had happened to overhear. "Harry said he's doing homework with her."

"I don't believe it," Ron breathed. "Those two are steadying out together instead of getting loonier?"

.

_Year One: Hermione Granger and the legend of Harry Potter_

(Word count: 100)

Hermione had read all about Harry Potter, of course, and the Sorting proved he really was there, at Hogwarts, in the same year as her, about to start the same classes. Pity he wasn't a Gryffindor too; she had so many questions...

A blond boy carrying a huge armful of books bumped into her just as she entered the school library. "Watch it," he sneered.

"It was your fault!" Hermione grumbled, but he was already gone, so she shook the encounter off and searched out the Harry Potter biographies.

Well, that was awfully inconsiderate of other students. The entire shelf was empty.

.

_Year Two: Two days after the welcoming feast _

(Word count: 400)

The two brutish boys shouldered Colin into a classroom empty except for a blond boy sitting at the teacher's desk and a redhead slouched against the wall and shut the door, then stood in front of it and crossed their arms.

"Colin Creevey," the blond said.

Colin clutched his camera and told himself that this must be like a private welcome to the wizarding world. "Yeah, that's me. Um, nice to meet you—"

"I noticed," the blond said, "you seem interested in taking pictures of Harry Potter."

Colin brightened. "Yeah, it's amazing innit, the _Boy Who Lived_ right here in—"

"I'm hiring you to take those pictures," the blond said. The redhead started and hissed, "_Malfoy!_" Malfoy continued, "That means you will show all of them to me and no one else unless I approve. You may make a sort of photographic history of life at Hogwarts while Harry Potter is here—_not of Harry himself_."

Colin frowned. "I dunno, that doesn't sound—"

"If by graduation you've assembled something decent I may see to having it published."

The redhead turned purple and dragged Malfoy around to face him. Colin was too busy envisioning his suddenly bright future to pay attention to their argument.

"Are you insane—"

"Father can make the publisher keep it quiet, it won't have to even mention Harry explicitly and he'll never know."

The redhead fumed. Malfoy turned around again and said, "You'll be paid for every acceptable picture regardless of what happens to it."

"Right, sure, absolutely—" Colin said happily.

"_Only_ if you remember the rules," Malfoy warned. "Candid shots of Harry only—if he ever finds out you don't receive a knut. If you get a shot of the Ravenclaw common room, I want to see the other three as well; I want to see other students even if Harry isn't around..."

"You got it, boss!" Colin saluted, then turned and left without even noticing the big boys move out of his way, absorbed in a wash of new ideas. Lots of scenic shots—he would have taken those anyway to send to Mum and Dad and Dennis. The common rooms, what a great idea—and the lake outside, maybe during different seasons, and the Quidditch games—and the players, that'd be even better...

As the door closed behind him he vaguely heard the redhead snipe about money not always solving everything.


	7. In the Dark, Covering Renegades

A/N: For those of you who enjoy my brand of humor here, I highly recommend checking out What the BLEEP? by dullastacks. It's hilarious, and recently updated, yay!

I is _tired_, but happy tired, because I have the day off tomorrow and I really wanted to post this tonight and I got it done so here it is! With less time spent contemplating and revising than usual, but it did still pass the made-my-sister-laugh-out-loud test so fingers crossed that it's up to par. Let me know. And for those of you who celebrate Christmas, happy holidays! Cheers for loot soon to come!

(Also, really crappy title, sigh...)

.

Year Three:

**In the Dark, Covering Renegades**

The worst thing about Harry Potter was that he was unpredictable. Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley had come to an unspoken agreement very early on in their friendship with the zany Ravenclaw out of necessity because of that: when they weren't actually around Harry, they wouldn't worry about what he might be doing at that moment. Otherwise they would go mad. Which had made classes they didn't share with him surprisingly relaxing, like mini vacations or lulls in the eye of a three-year-and-still-going storm...

"Galloping gargoyles, _look what Potter's doing!_"

...The only problem with which was that Harry was unpredictable.

The entirety of the third year Gryffindor/Slytherin History of Magic class rushed to ogle over the shoulder of the student who'd plastered his face against a window. On the Hogwarts grounds below a tiny figure in school robes seemed to be fighting with the Whomping Willow.

Nobody contested that it might be someone else doing a crazy meaningless stunt.

"And in sixteen eighty-five Eargit the Ugly slew Urg the Unclean thereby inciting an inter-clan war over..." droned Professor Binns, who hadn't noticed the change in his students' interest since they hadn't paid him any attention before either.

"He's lassoing it—" exclaimed one muggleborn fan of cowboy stories, spotting rope and jumping to a conclusion.

"No he's got it charmed—" a wizardborn boy corrected as the rope did, indeed, appear to be snaking around the retaliating tree on its own. "He's—"

"Merlin's _ghost_, he's trying to tie it up!" a third student exclaimed.

Then a general shout went up, while a tiny but larger figure in professor's robes sprinted from the castle steps toward the flailing boy and tree. "He's trying to tie _himself to it!_"

Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley separately considered suicide, heavy medication and wringing Harry's scrawny worthless neck when they met him again if he managed to get out of this scrape unharmed and smelling like daisies (_again_). Draco mentally upped his odds of keeling over from cardiac arrest before he turned thirty from seventy-five percent to eighty.

The tiny professor reached miniaturized standard spell range and fired something off that froze the tree mid-fit. The tiny figure that had to be Harry appeared to start shouting over it—the professor shouted back, arms waved, and wands jabbed for emphasis.

Tiny Harry got dragged back toward the castle by his ear.

By the time Ron and Draco got out of class Harry was scrubbing cauldrons in detention, so they couldn't interrogate him somewhere private. By the time Harry got to grab a meager bite from the kitchen elves Ron and Draco were both in class again and by the time they got out again for dinner Harry was scrubbing the trophy room floor. When the next day he was busy scrubbing toilets, and the day after that scrubbing cauldrons again, Draco and Ron started to wonder what he was really being punished for. Neville was quieter than usual, preoccupied, but with their self-appointed charge out of sight and influence the other two were too worried to really notice. Finally after an entire week Harry showed up in the foyer outside the Great Hall, lurking behind a statue, just as lunch let out and collected his friends from the throng.

"What did you think you were doing with that tree?" Draco hissed as the shorter boy, still bedraggled given his usual inattention to personal appearance, waved them toward the castle entrance.

"Staging a protest. Bet I would've been allowed in America, with _free rights_. They do it all the time on the telly," Harry complained. "Hey, Neville, c'mon! I found the most awesome secret, I've been trying to get away long enough to show you for days..."

"Why stage a protest?" Ron asked, wary of the answer, as the four boys skulked out on the grounds.

"'Cause that stupid prat Zacharias Smith taunted Buckbeak in class and got bit and made a huge stink about it and now Hagrid's saying Beaky's going to be put down!" Harry ranted. "It's unjust! And unfair, and we're not going to let it happen."

Draco did not want to hear any more, especially since he was more inclined to sympathize with Zacharias Smith. He'd almost been bitten by one of those stupid hippogriffs too. "So how come you got so much detention? Was McGonagall really that mad?" he cut in, trying not to notice that they seemed to be getting closer and closer to the Whomping Willow. In fact they seemed to be heading straight toward it.

"Oh, that's because they think I kidnapped Buckbeak and won't tell where he is," Harry said dismissively. The other three hung back as the tree's branches swished warningly in the gathering dusk. "Check this out—I noticed McGonagall do it." Harry raised his wand and incanted briefly. A burst of light flew through the branches and impacted the trunk. A second later the tree stilled. "C'mon!"

Harry wormed through the frozen branches and hopped into a mysterious dark hole that had just opened up at the base of the tree. Ron, Draco and Neville looked each other, shrugged resignedly, and followed.

The hole led to a long, dark tunnel, soon lit by four soft spheres of _Lumos_ and enlivened by imaginations of pirate troves, torture chambers and flobberworms bigger than ever seen Aboveground. Harry hummed spookily as he led the way, swinging his wand back and forth as though chasing the shadows back from their path. Ron brought up the rear and surreptitiously did the same thing behind him.

At the end of the tunnel they climbed up into a small, empty room that the wind moaned lowly outside of though they didn't feel any drafts. Harry sat cross-legged on one side of the trapdoor with his wand in front of him. When the other three joined him the dim blue glow in their midst cast eerie shadows on their faces and the unexplored room around them. Neville shivered as he tried not to think about how it was Halloween.

"Isn't this the best clubhouse ever?" Harry intoned, with a blue-lit skeletal grin as he leaned forward. "Nobody knows about it except us, it's already got a great secret entrance—we don't even need a password. Though maybe we can come up with one anyway. Well? What do you think?"

"Awesome," Ron opined, cracking his own death grin as he looked around and pictured the future. "Where are we, d'you think?"

"That would be in the Shrieking Shack, I believe," Draco said very calmly, because Malfoys remained calm even when sitting in reputedly the most haunted building in Britain.

Ron goggled at him. Neville gulped.

"Hey, great name!" Harry praised. "Great idea, too, we can pretend there's a ghoul upstairs or something—"

The other three automatically glanced at the ceiling, which creaked ominously, almost as if in response.

"Uh... yeah," Ron said. "See, Harry, the thing is _people've died in here_, that's why it's supposed to be boarded up—"

"It's _rumored_ that a lot of nasty things have happened in here," Draco interrupted. "I've never heard _proof_—"

The ceiling creaked again. Almost as if something was there and stirring restlessly.

"Right," Ron assured himself, then repeated, "Right. No proof. This is awesome, really, I bet it's all made up—are you sure you didn't put a ghoul up there already, Harry, I swear something's moving—"

Harry cocked his head briefly before climbing to his feet. "That's just Buckbeak. I'll go say hello."

"Of course he kidnapped the hippogriff," Draco muttered. Ron glared at him with very little conviction as Harry disappeared up the rickety stairs in one corner.

"Um... hey, guys," Neville said hesitantly, shifting in place on the bare floor. "There's something... it's not really about Harry, I just—"

"Quiet," Draco ordered, holding up one hand as he narrowed his eyes at the ceiling. Indistinct cooing filtered down. He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Alright, what?"

"Well, um, I-I've been talking with Hannah Abbott. Her dad has this thing—muggle—called Alzheimer's..." Neville started, fidgeting again, but stopped as Harry reappeared on the stairs, backwards, all attention on the large dark shape following him down.

"You're a big shaggy fellow, aren't you," Harry crooned. "Here are my friends, they're not going to hurt you either. Come on now. Maybe part Newfoundland, that's what you are. C'mere, Newfie."

"Harry," Ron breathed, finding his voice first from some frozen depth of mortal terror. "That's a grim."

"What's a grim?" Harry sat down and coaxed the physical foretelling of death's head into his lap, where he scratched its ears. The omen groaned and closed its eyes, leaning heavily into his hands. "There you go, you can have a kip while we plot treason. I'm sure he can't be any trouble since Beaky didn't have a problem with him."

Ron whimpered mentally and Draco focused very hard on not thinking _No wonder it's the most haunted place in Britain_ while he tried to think how to explain to Harry that Death's familiar was currently drooling on his trousers. Neville took a very deep breath and pointed out to himself the proof that the Boy Who Lived obviously had no fear of death and, surely, would protect his friends too.

"Okay," the Hufflepuff said with only a little wobble in his voice. "So, what's the treason we're plotting, Harry?"

"How to save Buckbeak of course," Harry said. "I've got a bit of a plan worked out already. The Malfoys are a lot more important and influential than the Smiths, right Draco?"

"Of course," Draco sniffed.

Harry nodded enthusiastically. "So you just accidentally get into some situation where Beaky saves your life, and then of course you're so grateful you—"

"Absolutely not!" Draco squawked, forgetting all about the meaning of the grim in the face of Harry's madness. "I will have _nothing_ to do with it! I despise hippogriffs, Potter! Think of something else!"

Which was only slightly less true and far wiser than admitting that he didn't even want to imagine hypothetically pretending to put his life in Harry's hands. Not when so many of Harry's plans turned into on-the-fly improvising halfway through.

Harry frowned. "Are you sure? I haven't really been working on any other ideas..."

"Yes," Draco enunciated, getting his heartbeat back under control. "Think of something else now."

Harry's face scrunched up further, and stayed that way for several minutes. The sign of coming destruction heaved itself to its feet once Harry's hand stopped scratching its ruff and wandered away, sniffing. The three wizard-raised boys automatically flinched away whenever it shambled in their direction.

"Maybe instead we could just find some other place for Buckbeak to go?" Neville ventured after the silence started to get oppressive. Especially with the occasional muted stamping and rustling upstairs.

"Yeah," Ron agreed, seizing on the idea that sounded like it had little potential of blowing up in their faces. "He's probably not very happy shut up in here y'know, Harry, we ought to be thinking about what's best for him."

Harry's frown slowly dissolved into a reluctant sigh and nod. "I guess you're right. Okay, so I'll just get him out of here, but how do we do it without anyone noticing? We can't risk Beaky getting caught."

The other three exchanged glances. "The Halloween feast is starting soon, maybe while everybody's there?" Neville said uncertainly.

Draco didn't like how little time that left them to plan, but it did seem the best option in their near future, so he shrugged shortly and nodded.

"Um," Ron said, wording as carefully as he only did around Harry, "what if someone notices us missing?"

Draco swallowed. Neville looked confused for a second, then nervous.

"Okay, so we need an even bigger distraction," Harry nodded. "That'll keep everybody too busy to notice things like which kids are where. How about we pretend Sirius Black breaks into the castle?"

Something crashed above them. The grim froze beneath the ward-sealed window. The boys jumped.

"What was that?" Ron demanded, whipping his wand from their four-point-cross and aiming it, still glowing, at the stairs. "Are you positive there aren't any geists, Harry—"

"Sorry, I forgot to give Beaky his dinner," Harry said, waving his own wand and enlarging a small sack he produced from his school bag. The sack jiggled in midair, then whisked up the stairwell and disappeared. "He's a little snippy before he's had his pile of rats. It's getting to be a pain finding enough of them in the castle, let me tell you—"

Ron paled, even though his mind was no longer on spooks in the night. "You didn't catch one that was missing a toe, did you?"

Harry blinked. Then he looked puzzled. Neville grabbed his arm and reminded him of Ron's problems with a know-it-all Housemate's cat and his missing pet rat in an undertone in his ear.

Harry's mouth formed a silent O.

"Sorry Ron," Neville supplied apologetically.

The grim suddenly hurtled up the stairs, roaring like a beast loosed from hell. Harry yelled "No! Bad dog!" and pounded after it. Ron slumped in despair and muttered, "Now he is dead, I knew it." Neville patted his shoulder in ginger sympathy and Draco rolled his eyes discreetly because, really, who kept a rat as a pet anyway?

Then things got weird.

A strange man's voice thundered, only slightly muffled, from above: "_Spit it out, you mangy nag, spit 'em—_" and Harry shouted, "Stay away from Buckbeak, I'm warning you—"

The other three rushed up with wands in hand, but only added to the confusion since they had to douse their _Lumos_ in preparation of casting anything else and the second floor was as dark as the first. There was a lot more shouting and much accidentally bumping into each other, hyperaware and terrified that it might be the unknown wizard, and only worsened by the possibility of it being an irate and dangerous hippogriff.

"_LUMOS!_" Harry bellowed. For a second everyone froze, eyes adjusting to the light and changed tableau. Ron was slumped against one wall, nursing his wrist and a black glare. A wild-looking adult was standing a few paces away, arm extended and pointing a wand at Harry. Draco and Neville, still nearest the stairs, quickly changed their aims to the man. Buckbeak lay in the corner opposite Ron, one wing half-flared and one beady orange eye sweeping around all the puny intruders who presented a potential threat to his dinner as he crunched and tore.

"Get away from Buckbeak," Harry demanded, at the same time Neville ordered, "P-Put down your wand," and Draco hissed furiously at Ron, "You just let him disarm you?"

"He bloody near broke my wrist!" Ron protested, but no one heard him because the stranger waved Ron's wand and said, "Just give me the Weasleys' rat, I'll come quietly after I've killed him—"

"Well, if all you want is a dead rat, let Beaky finish eating and there you'll have it," Harry said reasonably, keeping his own wand steady. "He likes to finish off his own food, you see, and he's nearly done already—"

"Wormtail is _mine_, I swore twelve years ago I'd—"

"Oh _Merlin_," Ron breathed, shock temporarily strangling his common sense. "You're him. Sirius Black. You killed Harry's parents."

For a second there was dead silence.

"He didn't—" Draco started to blurt, desperately, while Sirius Black's expression crumpled from dangerous to anguished as he stared at Harry, wand arm sagging. Neville stood still frozen in horror. Harry, for a second, looked strangely puzzled. Then he said, "You mean you were the other driver?"

Neville blinked. Sirius Black's mouth dropped open and just stayed there.

"Uh..." Ron said. "What... uh..."

"You were the driver that hit their car?" Harry repeated. His wand lowered, without his seeming to notice. "I guess that makes sense—Hagrid said an ordinary crash couldn't have killed them. You drive the... Knight Bus, right? As Stubby Boardman?"

_Why did he have to discover the Quibbler_, Ron grumbled yet again mentally, but couldn't quite mean it as much as he usually did.

"I guess you must've drank. Firewhiskey and stuff," Harry half-asked, half-stated, standing very straight and looking much more serious than usual. "Do you still?"

"Uh..." Sirius Black looked like he still wasn't quite sure he was standing on the same earth he had been a moment ago. "N-Not for twelve years..."

Harry nodded once. "Good. I'm glad their deaths meant something."

Black started to look like he was coming out of his befuddlement. "Harry—listen to me, it's not my fault, I didn't mean—"

"That's right, Harry," Draco jumped in forcefully. "Absolutely right. It's a _tragedy_ you lost your parents like that, more than any kid should have to deal with, you just have to look for little bright spots like this wherever you can..."

Black glared at him. He started to open his mouth again, but never finished as Neville edged over and shoved something from his back pocket into the man's hand. Black glanced down at the title, then jerked back up to stare at Neville. Pale and solemn, Neville nodded once, then retreated to the doorway by the stairway only barely shaking.

"Uh," Black said dumbly, glancing back at the book, then at Harry. Then he said nothing.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore right now," Harry said firmly, putting his wand away. "Give Ron his wand back, Mr. Boardman."

Meekly, Black did so. Ron and Draco stared in shock.

"What matters right now is saving Buckbeak," Harry continued. His audience automatically glanced to the hippogriff. Black let out a tiny cry of distress as he saw the hippogriff had finished the rats and was currently occupied cleaning its beak. "Now, I'm going to fly him out of here as soon as the Halloween feast starts, and since you're here anyway you're going to break into the castle."

Draco swallowed at the reminder of their harebrained scheme. Ron, his common sense still not quite recovered, hissed at the fugitive, "What _are_ you doing here, anyway?"

Black rubbed the back of his head briefly. "Well—uh," he said. "I was going to break into the castle, but..."

Draco groaned and smacked his head into the wall. "Oh for _Merlin's_ sake—"

"Good. It's all settled then," Harry decreed. "You guys help smuggle him in, I'm going to get Beaky outside. Meet back up here when we're done?"

"Kay," Neville said, while Draco and Ron were busy trying to come up with last-minute reasons they could explain to the Ravenclaw why this plan was the worst one ever conceived in the history of bad plans. But by the time they had they were halfway across the Hogwarts grounds in the company of a known escaped convict and there seemed nothing to do but go through with it.

"What's the password to Gryffindor tower, so I don't have to break in?" Black asked.

"What's it matter, if Buckbeak didn't eat Scabbers Crookshanks has," Ron muttered.

"We don't _know_ that. I'll look anyway," Black retorted.

"No, you won't. Everyone knows you're after Harry and he's a Ravenclaw," Draco ordered. Black started.

"What? Oh sod it, I've never gotten in that House—"

"Why are you after Harry anyway?" Neville asked quietly.

Black groaned. "I'm not, I swear—look, James and Lily switched Secret Keepers at the last minute..."

.

The Halloween feast was well under way when it broke up into chaos at a ghost's discovery of Sirius Black on the fifth floor swearing and cursing the Ravenclaw door knocker. The ghost was not, unfortunately, calm and coherent enough when relaying what it had seen to let the adults understand it immediately and take appropriate steps, and so the students heard too and promptly panicked. By the time adults reached the Ravenclaw entrance there was nothing left but singe marks on the wall, and four floors below the Hogwarts house elves were roiling in confusion as three students manhandled a large grim through the kitchen and tried to convince them that this was nothing worth noting or remembering.

By the time the trio had taken care of the grim the staff remaining in the Great Hall had brought it back under enough control to begin a head count of the students. Ron and Neville were caught outside in the foyer; Draco, who had lagged behind because he was trying to get rid of all the shed hair on his robes before joining his Housemates, barely escaped notice.

Unfortunately, the first thing to occur to Filch at the sight of two of his best friends (without him) was; "Where's Potter?"

Ron and Neville glanced at each other in panic.

"Uh... uh..." Ron stammered.

"Out looking for finfennel," Neville blurted. "I was telling him about how it grows at night and—"

"And that's worth missing the chance to stuff his face with sweeties with the rest of you lot?" Filch glared at them suspiciously.

From around the corner behind Filch's back Draco mouthed at them furiously. Ron couldn't tell his words but intuition gave him the meaning, and desperation made him say it: "No, he doesn't feel like celebrating the night of his parents' death, actually. And doesn't feel like being around a bunch of other people celebrating either."

Filch grumbled, possibly actually a little abashed, but glared at them again anyway. "We'll see if he turns up with any weeds, then. Now get into the Hall and stay there."

Ron tried to stall, but with the caretaker standing right there the boys had no choice but to obey. Neville shot Draco a look of mute entreaty as they shuffled through the opened door. Draco slumped against the wall for a second, resisting the urge to beat his head against it, and then hurried outside before he got rounded up too.

All he remembered from the Herbology lesson about finfennel was that they didn't grow it in the greenhouses, Sprout had had to harvest it and bring it in for them specifically from... from... the _Forbidden bloody Forest_.

Since he was alone, Draco let himself whimper, just once. Then he imagined several different ways of murdering Harry, and Filch, and Ron and Neville and Sirius Black just for good measure to make himself feel better. It didn't work, and now he was in the forest about to die just to collect some stupid useless plant he might not even recognize for Harry who would probably lose it or turn it into a little green rabbit before he even found out why he was supposed to have it because that was just the kind of person he was...

Draco stepped on a stick. It cracked. Something growled behind him.

Draco stopped, closed his eyes, and hoped for a quick and merciful death. After which he could return to haunt everybody.

Very, very slowly, he turned around.

.

"What are these, fireworks?" Ron muttered, trying to examine the booty purloined from his older brothers' pockets under the table. "How do we set them off?"

"I don't know," Neville said. "The Slytherins have probably already noticed Draco's missing already anyway."

"As long as the professors are too busy to listen, I don't care," Ron said. "We'll say he had indigestion and was in the loo and tomorrow there'll be no reason to prove otherwise. What in Merlin's name was in that book that shut Black up like that?"

Neville flushed. "It's muggle—about muggle diseases where something's off in the head. I borrowed it from Hannah. It kind of... a little bit of a lot of them describe Harry, if you read it that way."

Ron blinked. "Really?"

"A lot," Neville nodded solemnly. "I mean, _we_ know Harry's not mental—"

"Uh, yeah. Right. But Black doesn't know him, so..." Ron stared at nothing for a second, shrugged. "Works for us. Here goes—oh Merlin, duck!"

.

Harry was humming spookily again as he tripped up to the Shrieking Shack, not even jumping when Draco's pale face appeared in front of him at the entrance to the second tunnel from the Forbidden Forest. "Hey Draco—"

"Here," Draco snarled, shoving a handful of something green and leafy at him. "You were collecting it while meditating on Thanatopsis and composing a letter to your parents in the afterlife. It has thorns. And keep that _great sodding mutt_ of yours in a kennel from now on."

"You met Fluffy?" Harry exclaimed, brightening, looking around. "Is he still here?"

"And by the way," Draco ground on, relentlessly, "_how_ did you get back here so soon when you didn't bring your broom?"

"Oh, I didn't have to go far," Harry said blithely. "I was going to fly Beaky to the other side of the Forest, just to be on the safe side, but we passed over this herd of hippogriffs on the way so I figured what better place for one in hiding to blend in? So everything's fine."

There was a wall handy, right beside them. Draco beat his head against it. "After all this effort. You put. The hippogriff. _Right back with its herd_."

"I did—not maybe," Harry protested. "And I just stopped at Hagrid's and told him a new one might have moved in. He's going to keep it in the forest for a while. Call it Witherwings."

"I hate you," Draco said calmly.

"Where's Sirius Black?" Harry asked.

"Inside."

Harry grinned. "Good. C'mon, we're going to be Slytherin."

"What? How?"

"Well he did escape wizarding prison and he didn't exactly give us a reason why we shouldn't turn him in even if he was only there for a drunken accident, so..."

Draco blinked, very slowly. "So we're going to blackmail him for..."

Harry's grin widened. "For lessons on how to turn into grims, of course."


	8. Years TwoFive: Extra Features

A/N: Christmas carols have been playing a _lot_ at work recently. One of them suddenly shoved an idea for a drabble into my head, practically fully formed, so I wrote it and of course had to post it as soon as possible, but, since I promised the next update would be the oneshot with Sirius I had to write that first. (So turn the page back for a lovely surprise!) But I think I had more fun with the drabble. As did Harry, definitely. It's the best time of the year... I hope you all enjoy this humble gift of a double update! ^_^

.

_Year Four: Weighing of the wands photo shoot_

(Word Count: 100)

"How about a few comments from our youngest champion," Rita simpered, reaching a spike-nailed hand for Harry's shoulder as he chatted with Viktor Krum about flying.

A larger hand closed around her own shoulder and pulled her into the side room already set up for interviews.

"Ready when you are, Miss Skeeter."

Rita turned and frowned. "Don't you work for the Malfoys?"

The man smiled blandly. "Young master Malfoy and Mister Potter are good friends. Since Mister Potter obviously has need of services like mine..."

"Of course he does," Rita said sourly, pulling out a plain black quill. Damn press agents.

.

_Year Three: Hogsmeade_

(Word count: 200)

Harry was grinning as Filch let him pass and the four boys started down the road to Hogsmeade.

"Good news?" Neville guessed.

"I rule," Harry announced with great satisfaction. "See?"

The other three regarded the flourished permission slip dubiously.

"Got your uncle to sign it, eh," Ron commented.

Harry's grin widened. "Course not. I forged his signature."

Draco and Ron goggled.

"But—how's that possible?" Draco asked, head muddling with security charms and a muggle's lack of magical imprint.

"Oh it's easy, just turn the real thing sideways so your brain doesn't automatically recognize the shapes as letters and practice copying," Harry explained happily. "I'm working on McGonagall's right now, I'd like to get into the Restricted Section..."

"Madam Pince probably checks with the teachers about those notes," Ron blurted, suppressing shakes at the thought of what Harry might find in there if his muggle cheating really worked like just proved.

Harry frowned. "You think? Well, it can't hurt to find out..."

"Yes," Draco said, striving for calm. "Yes, it can."

"I might be sent to the Headmaster?" Harry asked.

"Probably," Neville said. Ron nodded fervently.

Harry grinned. "Excellent! I've barely got any samples from him yet, imagine what I could do with his..."

.

_Year Five: Occlumens_

(Word Count: 400)

"I think we have time for one more presentation today," Flitwick decided, casting a quick _Tempus_. "How about Mr. Potter?"

At that everyone sat up and paid attention. Inventive uses for simple charms was Potter's standard operating procedure. He _might_ have not even put any effort into this assignment, which would still no doubt result in something totally screwball... but he might have really tried.

Harry reached the front of the classroom with an ominously rattling box in arm and Ron Weasley in tow. With natural showman instincts, he spoke matter-of-factly, hardly even raising his voice. "Occlumency is an obscure Mind Art that keeps people from reading your thoughts," he announced. "It's really difficult to learn and hardly anybody bothers because Legilimency—the art that lets you read people's thoughts—is even harder so almost nobody can do it."

Harry set the box on the floor to one side of Flitwick's desk, motioning Ron to stand behind it. Then he stepped to the side, pointed his wand at his friend, and muttered an incantation. Ron jerked. Harry kept his wand steady, urging, "_Feel_ it!" Ron's jaws and fists clenched. He looked like he was restraining himself from bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. And looked like he was in pain.

"However, shielding your mind has a lot of other benefits most people don't think about," Harry continued. "Professor, could I get you to open the box for me? Nobody go near it."

Everyone leaned forward, but no one stirred from their seats—nobody wanted to disobey while Potter was the only one who knew why they shouldn't. Flitwick waved his wand, and the box's lid flew open.

An amorphous humanoid blob surged out, helpfully identified by someone's shout of, "Boggart!" Several students shrieked. The boggart focused on the person closest to it: Ronald Weasley.

A second passed. Contrary to everyone's understanding, the boggart didn't change shape into Ron's worst fear—didn't change shape at all. Everyone stared—

The boggart started scratching furiously at its side. Bursts of disbelieving laughter chased it back into the box. Ron groaned and slumped in relief as Harry turned his wand away, shooting his friend a suffering glare the Ravenclaw didn't notice.

"For an Occlumency hack, all you have to do is concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of all else," Harry announced. "Thus I present: the Tickling Charm!"

.

_Year Five: Trelawney's tower, Divination class_

(Word count: 200)

"Okay, so, you wanna go first?" Neville asked.

"Sure. I have weird dreams all the time," Harry agreed. He thought for a moment, drumming his fingers on the lacy tablecloth. "I've had one recently about running down this long corridor, I think because this weird voice is telling me to..."

Neville flipped through the pages of his dream dictionary. "Okay, the corridor represents an unexplored aspect of yourself... and the voice is a message from your subconscious."

Harry grinned. "So my mind thinks I'm not reaching my full potential yet?"

"Merlin forbid," Neville groaned. "That dream's probably an exception."

"I also had one where black horsemen chased me into a big grocery store in the middle of a desert." He crinkled his nose. "I think the desert was pink."

Neville had to stifle his snicker as Trelawney drifted by, and Harry quickly cracked open his own dictionary. "Okay, your turn."

Neville thought. "I never remember much... um, I think there was a white cat... that was a unicorn later."

"I read somewhere that logic was invented by the ancient Greeks," Harry remarked. "It's not actually hardwired into our understanding of the universe or anything."

Neville nodded. He could believe that.

.

_Year Two: Five days before Christmas break_

(Word count: 300)

Snow had finally stopped falling that morning, so the staff knew to expect distracted students in class and hyperactive children once out, but on this day the hubbub in the corridors never seemed to taper off. Thick-shod feet dashed back and forth and distant fragments of carols interspersed with breathless chatter. The Hospital Wing, however, remained quiet, until McGonagall entered with an expression of amusement mingled with long-suffering exasperation.

"I hope you've a large stock of PepperUp, Poppy."

"I've already handed out three dozen doses these last few weeks. What's changed?" Pomfrey asked curiously, as she moved to check her stores.

McGonagall's shoulders hitched briefly as she sighed, "A muggleborn started singing, apparently, and now Potter and the first and second years are out rolling giant snowballs, stacking them on top of each other and giving them faces. And they're _moving_."

"Moving?" Pomfrey paused with a blue vial in hand and stared at her. "You mean, just charmed flying snowballs?"

"I mean charmed snow... people. They've grown arms. The fourth years are trying to make them throw snowballs. Macready is shoving them around on the ice for something called Swan Lake. The Weasley twins are peddling coal and top hats. Lovegood is scribing 'snow angels' on them to ward in Jack Frost."

Pomfrey groaned and set down the vial with a clunk. "Might as well pass it out with the pumpkin juice at dinner. I don't suppose Filius could come up with something to forestall some of these little notions?"

"Filius is out with his fifth years charming them to sing," McGonagall said dryly. "It's always the Ravenclaws, isn't it?"

Pomfrey snorted as she waved her wand at a whole shelf of blue vials. "Happy holidays, Minnie. Come have a glass of nog before we have to face the horde again."


	9. Year Five: Animagus

A/N: Say yay! An update featuring a huge, vital, riveting (possibly slightly exaggerated) plot reveal of one of the boys' Animagus forms! Ending out with pure aww those gosh-darn kids fluff enough to max out your sugar intake for the day. ^_^

Creature fics are fun, great fun; I've loved reading quite a few. But they're also fun to poke fun of... hee hee hee.

.

Year Five:

**Performance Anxiety (of the Bioluminescent Kind)**

"Right." Ron flopped down in the remaining space on the floor of the Shrieking Shack and looked around at the other three expectantly. "So someone having trouble?"

Neville stared fixedly at the floor as he mumbled, "I can't flash."

Four plus years' regular and applied education had not made Ron consistently quicker on the uptake. "Huh?"

"He's got the form down," Draco explained, with only the slightest trace of envy, which was admirable considering his own ongoing difficulties with pulling together the entirety of his animal parts. "Perfect firefly. Except he doesn't light up."

"I've been researching what I could. Not that there's a lot of detailed specifics on normal animals here," Harry volunteered. "But it was actually pretty easy to find out, it's going to be fixing it that might be tricky. That's why I figured all of us together have the best chance of solving it."

The other three gave him their full attention. Neville looked nervous.

"You see, real fireflies glow... to attract a mate."

There was a moment of silence.

Ron broke it by sniggering.

"Mating," Draco said, with a perfectly straight face. Neville winced and turned red. "So we have to get Nev an, er... mate?"

Neville turned even redder and uttered a sound that strongly resembled a whimper.

"I was thinking maybe he should just start chasing after girls," Harry contradicted with a disassociated expression that meant his creativity was in full gear and his empathy had been temporarily disconnected entirely. "Although some species flash to attract prey instead—"

Ron broke into sniggers again. "Big bad Neville Longbottom stalking the halls after curfew to feed on little firsties..." He dissolved into full laughter.

"Shut up," Neville whimpered through clenched teeth. "Does it have to matter if I can't glow?"

"But we already worked it out. Sure that'd help you with spying on stuff, but then how could you signal?" Harry entreated, leaning forward in his cross-legged position. "I'll even teach you Morse code—"

"What's Morse code?" Draco asked warily, suspecting another muggle invention.

"Sounds like too much work," Ron opined, recovering enough to be able to speak coherently but still grinning unrepentantly. "Look, it's really not that bad, Nev. Just pick a girl and start pining."

"But—" Neville protested weakly.

"We'll help," Ron assured him, slinging an arm over his shoulder. Neville twitched involuntarily. "Come on, there must be some bird you've noticed already. It's the quiet ones who have the dirtiest fantasies, right?"

"I do not!" Neville blurted, so horrified that he momentarily lost the ability to speak further.

"Love potion. Private and practical. I can get you one from Professor Snape," Draco suggested, as though nothing could be more natural.

Neville reddened again slightly and shook his head.

"Magazines?" Ron suggested, a little too helpfully to really consider how likely Neville was to accept such a thing. "With all my older brothers—"

Neville whimpered and stared at the floor again as though it would conveniently open up and swallow him whole.

"Love potion!" Harry burst out, looking inspired. Ron and Draco immediately automatically tensed for whatever he would say next.

"Look, I'll just figure it out myself, okay?" Neville cried, shaking off Ron's arm and making a motion to get to his feet.

"_Pheromones_," Harry clarified as if he hadn't even heard, turning unfocused eyes, shining irresistibly, on the Hufflepuff. Neville hesitated, then stayed for just another moment, just as Draco and Ron always did also. "Or hormones, or—I'll research it. We can concoct like a scentless cologne or something, that'll be like a hot girl being there without a hot girl being there!"

Ron and Draco exchanged glances, both blank. More muggle madness? Just plain madness? Or yet another utterly illogical half-explained leap of intuition that they wouldn't understand even after it had inexplicably worked?

"Oh... kay?" Neville agreed tentatively.

Harry beamed. "You'll still probably have to learn how to do it on your own though. Luna said she's willing to snog you a couple times if that'll help."

"You've told her about our _secret illegal_ lessons?" Ron demanded, righteously incensed since they had all four sworn to keep it just between them.

Draco opened his mouth to agree but then paused. It behooved a Slytherin never to agree with a Gryffindor if possible, no matter how sort-of-well they had come to get along, so he switched to the part of reasonable advocate instead. "_Did_ you tell her?"

Neville, now looking slightly colorless and glazed-eyed, fixed his gaze on Harry imploringly.

"Of course not. We swore," Harry said piously. "But she has good ideas a lot, so I told her there was some weird magical accident somewhere back in Neville's family that had to do with crossbreeding magical creatures and it turns out he's got just a trace of who-knows-what blood and the long story short is now that he's maturing he's having a little trouble getting his, well, interest in girls jump-started."

"You told her I'm part _animal_?" Neville choked, aghast.

Ron turned away and doubled up, clapping one hand over his mouth but still shaking and snorting helplessly. Draco wore a well-bred suppressed expression that was understood to cover condescension but also applied to controlling amusement.

"It's Luna. She was totally fine with it," Harry said, looking slightly bewildered, evidently yet failing to grasp that what was fine with one person was not necessarily fine with another. "She won't tell anybody, she never does—" He turned his head to look to Draco for support.

But Neville was beyond hearing. Ron had to right himself with remarkable rapidity and lunge for the overwrought Hufflepuff's robe with a shout of, "It's not that bad Nev, don't go for the window—!"

* * *

_Year Five: Career advice meeting_

(Word count: 200)

When Draco heard about Professor Moody's year-long captivity, his first reaction was pure envy. _Why couldn't I have thought of that?_ It's a portable flat, he'd point out. Luxurious, private, secure. He could generously gift Harry a house elf to take care of all his errands while he dreamed up harebrained projects, so he'd never have to come out...

"Conquer the earth with an army of flying monkeys," Harry's voice said promptly through the door behind him.

It would make everything so much _easier_.

"Now, Mr. Potter... something I can put in your record," Flitwick's chirped. Couldn't he sound reproving? Or at least less tickled? Draco scowled. He could still lock Harry in a trunk anyway. Why not? He probably wouldn't actually mind. They could probably even keep him from noticing... it was for his own _good_.

"Honestly, I dunno what I want to spend my life doing," Harry admitted, still cheerful. "As long as I'm as happy as I am now, I don't really care. Everything's so great here, you know? The magic, the castle, my friends..."

Draco whimpered, silently, and since the corridor was currently empty let himself slump against the wall. He could. He should... but he couldn't.

.

_Year One: Summer vacation_

(Word count: 300)

"He's got an AXE!" screamed the wayward hiker, hurling himself down on worn wood. "DUCK!"

"Help! He's almost got me!" shrieked the hapless camper, flinging himself around obstacles with great vigor and short steps.

"Up the mountain! It's our only hope!" panted the wayward hiker. Two sets of bare feet thumped onto an eiderdown summit and froze, straining to catch any sign of pursuit with baited breath.

From the distant shadows downhill a golden rectangle suddenly clicked into existence, outlining a plump apparition that asked cheerfully, "Having fun, boys? Either of you want a cookie?"

"Mrs. _Weasley_! You can't give us _cookies_, we're in the middle of the Black Forest!" yelped the wayward hiker.

"You'll lead the hermit right to us! _Out_, Mum!" squawked the hapless camper.

Mrs. Weasley, no stranger to the games invented by rambunctious boys given her six sons, considered for a second before setting the plate of cookies down by the door. "Well, if you happen to notice a little squirrel busy hoarding something, maybe you should pay attention."

"Could be the hermit's stash?" consulted the hapless camper with his fellow as the apparition drew back whence it came.

"Maybe we can steal it," determined the wayward hiker. "It'll be dangerous..."

Mrs. Weasley smiled as she closed the door, and went off to tell the rest of her children not to disturb them.

Which of course led to two certain Weasleys slinking out of bed several hours later, with mischief astir and malice aforethought. Their brother's knob twisted silently, the door ghosted from its frame... two indignant cries cut off as the door swung shut.

The next morning at the breakfast table saw Mrs. Weasley clucking her tongue at the sulking twins as she served Harry birthday pancakes. Ron suggested, smugly, that maybe they'd stumbled into a booby-trapped mine shaft.


End file.
